Senior Pakistani Taliban leader 'shocked' by Malala attack
A Pakistani Taliban leader has sent a letter to schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, 16, expressing shock that she was shot by Taliban gunmen last year, BBC reported.
The Taliban were universally condemned after gunmen shot Malala in the head.
In his letter to Malala, Adnan Rasheed stops short of apologising but says he wished the attack "had never happened."
He also claims the shooting was not in response to Malala's campaign for girls' education, but because she ran an anti-Taliban "smear campaign."
Malala - who is considered a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize - is credited with bringing the education issue to global attention.
Speaking at UN headquarters in New York last Friday, she said that books and pens scared extremists. She also urged education for all, including "for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all the terrorists."