It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
edition.cnn.com...
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) --
In a letter to a Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head on her way home from school, a senior Taliban commander purportedly tells her that she was targeted not because she advocated education for all girls, but rather for her criticism of the militant group.
The letter attributed to Adnan Rashid was released just days after 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai took the stage at the United Nations, where she delivered an emotional plea for the right to go to school on behalf of all children.
Malala was 15 when gunmen jumped on her school bus and shouted her name, scaring other girls into identifying her, in the Swat Valley on October 9, 2012. The attack sparked massive protests in Pakistan and condemnation worldwide.
Malala: Taliban failed to silence us Girls defy the Taliban in Pakistan The story of Malala Yousafzai
"The Taliban believe you were intentionally writing against them and running a smear campaign to malign their effort to establish an Islamic system in (the) Swat Valley, and your writings were provocative," according to the letter, which was dated Monday and released to CNN by a Pakistan intelligence source.
The letter went on to say that the Taliban supports the education of women, as long as it adheres to Islamic law.
He urged her, according to the letter, to return to Pakistan and "use your pen for Islam and the plight of the Muslim community."
Yousafzai -- who on Friday gave her first public remarks since she was shot by the Taliban last year for advocating that all girls should go to school -- will return to the United Nations in September to press her point, according to a statement from Brown's A World at School campaign.
Accompanied by Brown, she will address an education summit of world leaders during the week of the full General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, it said.
There, the 16-year-old will demand action on behalf of 57 million children around the world who have no access to any schooling.
Where did the focus on Evolution come from?
They can write a letter like this, but I don't trust them.
There ARE Muslims who want only Islam-based education - anything that doesn't promote the Koran is apparently taboo. I'm only still learning about it - but my own main focus is on the importance of well-rounded EDUCATION - for adults AND for kids.
While ink and effort is spent making such near undefinable values into 'Rights', I'd say the full court, international push ought to be for universal education to some generally agreed, basic level, in every nation.
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- It's the latest cruel tactic in the Pakistani Taliban's battle to stop girls and women from getting an education: acid thrown in their faces to scar them for life and deter others from following in their footsteps.
A doctor who treated the victims of an acid attack on a college van in the city of Parachinar in northern Pakistan last month told CNN that two girls had been left with severe burns to their faces.
The Pakistani Taliban have taken responsibility for the attack in threatening pamphlets distributed around the city. They also warn local girls against going to school, Dr. Shaban Ali said.
"We will never allow the girls of this area to go and get a Western education," said Qari Muhavia, the local Pakistani Taliban leader, when contacted by CNN by telephone.
"If and when we find any girl from Parachinar going to university for an education we will target her (in) the same way, so that she might not be able to unveil her face before others," Muhavia said.
Anti-Western View Shown in Verbal Attack Permeates Pakistani Society
ISLAMABAD—Malala Yousafzai, a teenage campaigner for girls' education who was nearly killed by Pakistani militants, was feted at the United Nations last week. Here at home, however, she has been widely portrayed as part of a Western conspiracy against Islam and the developing world.
A 1,800-word open letter in imperfect English by Adnan Rasheed, one of the most feared Taliban leaders in Pakistan, outlined these conspiracy theories Wednesday, describing the type of secular education that Ms. Yousafzai championed as "satanic" and arguing that the U.N. wanted to "enslave the world."
A senior Pakistani Taliban commander, in an open letter to Malala Yousafzai, calls her part of conspiracy by Western elite to enslave the world, though he says he personally wishes the attack on her had never happened. Saeed Shah has details. Photo: AP.
Even as the 16-year-old girl is celebrated abroad as a hero, such radical views are becoming mainstream in Pakistani society, where even commentators hostile to the Taliban widely portray Ms. Yousafzai as a pawn of the West or even a CIA agent.
"Public opinion is confused about the Malala issue. Many people hate Malala," said Zubair Torwali, a newspaper columnist from her home valley of Swat. "Anything here in Pakistan related to the West or America becomes a thing of conspiracy. The Taliban's ideology is flourishing in Pakistan. It is victorious."
When the shooting happened, there was an unprecedented outpouring of public sympathy for Ms. Yousafzai, and anger against the Taliban, inside Pakistan.
However, since then, opinion has hardened against the girl. Last week, on the local Pakistani language versions of the BBC website, in the national language Urdu and the Pashto spoken in her native Swat, the majority of comments were venomously against the schoolgirl. Some even described her as a "prostitute."
Detractors seized on the assistance and attention Ms. Yousafzai received from Western governments and media after the attack. Her appearance at the United Nations seemed to confirm the view that she was somehow working on a Western agenda.