Speech: Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for wanting to attend school, addresses the UN youth assembly in New York last Friday
A Taliban commander has written to teenage schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai explaining why she was shot in the head by the group – but also expressing regret that it ever happened.
In faltering English, wanted terrorist Adnan Rasheed said he was shocked to hear of the assassination attempt last October.
Malala, then 15, was gravely wounded by masked gunmen who singled her out as she returned home in a school bus in Pakistan’s north-west Swat Valley.
The shooting sparked worldwide condemnation and Malala was flown to Britain for treatment.
She has recovered so well that she was able to give a speech at the UN in New York on her 16th birthday last week saying she has new courage to fight for the right of all children to have a free education.
The letter from Rasheed, who was freed in a mass jail break last year after he was arrested over a plot to murder Pakistan’s former president, falls short of offering a full apology.
But he wrote: ‘When you were attacked it was shocking for me. I wished it would never happened and I had advised you before.’ He explained she was shot not because she went to school, but because she had spoken out against the Taliban in Pakistan .
‘Taliban believe that you were intentionally writing against them and running a smearing campaign to malign their efforts to establish Islamic system in Swat and your writings were provocative,’ he wrote.
‘You have said in your [UN] speech yesterday that pen is mightier than sword, so they attacked you for your sword not for your books or school.’
He added that he was not against the principle of girls being educated, but was specifically against a western education – which he said followed a ‘satanic or secular curriculum’.
However, the tone soon changes, as Rasheed makes a bizarre attempt to defend the TTP’s assassination attempt.
Mixed message: Taliban commander Adnan Rasheed, appearing in a TTP video on YouTube, wrote in his letter to Malala how 'shocked' he was to hear of her near-fatal attack but maintained it had to happen
Apologetic: Rasheed writes how he wished the attempt on Malala's life had not happen, and speaks of his 'brotherly' feelings for her
New tune: The letter soon becomes threatening in tone and insinuated that Malala had herself to blame for the attack by the Taliban organisation
He writes that Malala had to be silenced because she was ‘running a smearing campaign to malign their efforts to establish Islamic system in Swat and your writings were provocative.’
Rasheed claims that the Taliban is in fact not against education for women, challenging her on why she was shot.
‘There were thousands of girls who were going to school before and after the Taliban insurgency in Swat, would you explain why were only you on their hit list???,’ he asks.
‘You and the UNO is pretending that as you were shot due to education, although this is not the reason, be honest, not the education but your propaganda was the issue and what you are doing now.’
Rasheed also defends the destruction of schools in Swat Valley by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claiming they are being used by the Pakistani army, and ‘when something sacred is turned lethal it needs to be eliminated this is the policy of Taliban’.
Courage: Malala was given a standing ovation and there were cheers of delight as she stepped up to speak
The letter, in which he claims the Western nations are in ‘conspiracy with Jews and freemasons’ he also calls President Barack Obama a mass murderer and claims polio vaccinations are a sterilization programme.
He writes that although it is ‘amazing’ that she campaigns for education, Rasheed finishes his letter, dated on July 15th, that Malala should ‘come back home, adopt the Islamic and pushtoon culture, join any female Islamic madrassa near your home town’.
Whether this is the wish of Malala, it is an unlikely event as she is still under threat to her life should she return to her home in Swat.
Last week Malala spoke to the United Nation's youth assembly on her 16th birthday - declared Malala Day - saying that the assassin's bullet tried to silence her, but failed.
She said: 'Malala Day is not my day - today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.
'There are hundreds of human rights activists and social workers who are not speaking for their rights but who are struggling to achieve their goal of peace, education and equality.
Malala was shot after being targeted by the Taliban for demanding education in Pakistan
'Thousands of people have been killed by the terrorists and millions injured - I am just one of them. They thought that the bullet would silence us - but they failed.
'Out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought they would change my aim and stop my ambitions.'
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt on Malala, calling her efforts pro-Western. Two of her classmates were also wounded.
Yousafzai was treated in Britain, where doctors mended parts of her skull with a titanium plate. Unable to safely return to Pakistan, she started at a school in Birmingham in March.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), formed in 2007, is an umbrella group uniting various militant factions operating in Pakistan's volatile northwestern tribal areas along the porous border with Afghanistan.
Under Taliban rule in neighboring Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, women were forced to cover up and were banned from voting, most work and leaving their homes unless accompanied by a husband or male relative.
Culled from Daily Mail
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