WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, sharply criticized The New York Times on Thursday for anonymously quoting a member of a terrorist group in an article about the deadly attacks last week in France.

The article, which ran on the front page on Thursday, quoted a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who addressed the timing of the attacks. The Qaeda member said that although the operations were executed by one man who had ties to the Qaeda group and another who had ties to the Islamic State, the coordination was a result of their friendship — not of common planning between the groups.

“Your decision to grant anonymity to a spokesperson for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula so he could clarify the role of his group in assassinating innocents, including a wounded police officer, and distinguish it from the assassination of other innocents in Paris in the name of another group of terrorists, is both mystifying and disgusting,” Mr. Comey said in a letter to The Times.