'Dear Malala, this is why we shot you'

A senior figure in the Pakistan Taliban has written an extraordinary letter to Malala Yousafzai, coming close to expressing regret.

In the four-page document Adnan Rasheed described his shock at hearing the 15-year-old had been shot last year.

He claimed he had wanted to warn her against criticising the Taliban because of his "brotherly" feelings towards someone from his own Yousafzai tribe.

"When you were attacked it was shocking for me. I wished it would never have happened and I had advised you before," he wrote.

Malala has spent the past nine months in Britain recovering from her injuries. She was shot twice by masked gunmen who singled her out on a school bus in the town of Mingora, Swat. Since then she has become a symbol of the campaign to help more girls into school.

In a speech to the United Nations last week she declared: "One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution."

Malala's story has provoked soul-searching within the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Commanders sent out a slew of press releases after the shooting to justify why they had attacked a girl.

In the latest letter, Rasheed insisted Malala was not shot because of her campaign for education.

"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."

Rasheed is one of Pakistan's most notorious terrorists. He was in the Pakistan Air Force before being imprisoned for a plot to kill Pervez Musharraf, but escaped in a mass jail break last year.

Now he has a taste for flowery prose, quoting Bertrand Russell on science and referencing Sir TB Macaulay, who played a major role in introducing English to Indian schools in the 19th century. "Why they want to make all human beings English? Because Englishmen are the staunch supporters and slaves of Jews," he wrote.

Rasheed insisted the Taliban were not opposed to education, just an education system that would turn Pakistanis into slaves and had no room for Islam.

He asked whether Malala would have received as much attention if she had been hurt in a CIA drone strike: " . would world have ever heard updates on your medical status? . Would the media make a fuss about you?"