A Taliban rep has sent an open letter to Malala, the Pakistani teen activist who was targeted last year by Taliban gunmen in a failed assassination attempt, asking her to stop her "smearing campaign" against the militants who tried to kill her.

The young Swat Valley native gained international renown and praise for her outspoken views on life under Taliban rule — specifically the banning of girls from attending schools, and the destruction of dozens of schools for girls.

In perhaps the most audacious example of "mansplaining" to date, Pakistani Taliban commander Adnan Rasheed tells the now-16-year-old Malala why his organization decided to take her life by shooting her in the head.

"It is amazing that you are shouting for education, you and the [UN] is pretending that you were shot due to education, although this is not the reason," writes Rasheed in a letter distributed yesterday to reporters. "[N]ot the education but your propaganda was the issue."

But just because Malala was nearly gunned down while returning home from school last October doesn't give her the right to "smear" the Taliban, Rasheed asserts.

Instead, Malala should abandon her "satanic" desire to see women educated in "Western" ways, and "come back home, adopt the Islamic and Pashtun culture, join any female Islamic madrassa near your home town, study and learn the book of Allah, use your pen for Islam and plight of Muslim [community]."

Malala appeared before the UN's youth assembly last week on her 16th birthday — a day officially dubbed "Malala Day."

"The extremists were, and they are, afraid of books and pens," she told the assembly. "They are afraid of women. Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons."

[screengrab via Channel 4]