PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani Taliban commander has written a letter to the teenage activist shot in the head by the group, saying he wished he could have warned her to stop criticizing the terrorists so she wouldn’t have been attacked.

The commander, Adnan Rasheed, did not say the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai, 15, in October was wrong, only that he found it “shocking” and wished it hadn’t happened.