Adnan Rashid (born 1 October 1979) is a Pakistani cricket umpire and militant commander of
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and former junior technician of the
Pakistan Air Force. He is the chief of Ansar Al-Aseer, the
TTP's unit tasked to free militant prisoners.
Personal life
Rashid, an ethnic
Pashtun, is a resident of the Chota Lahor area of
Swabi district. He joined the
Pakistan Air Force as a junior technician in 1997, but was later dismissed due to his
Salafist extremist ideology.
Militant activity
Rashid was convicted for an attack on then
President General Pervaiz Musharraf in December 2003 and was given the death penalty. However, he was freed, along with 400 other inmates, by
Taliban
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* Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013)
* Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016)
* Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...
militants when they stormed the
Bannu Prison in 2012.
He masterminded the
Dera Ismail Khan jailbreak on
30 July 2013, in which 175 prisoners were freed including 35 high-profile militants.
Rashid wrote a letter to teenage education activist
Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban, saying that he wished that the attack had not happened, but told her that she was targeted because she speaks against the Taliban.
On 11 July 2014, Adnan Rashid was reportedly captured along with three other militants by Pakistani security forces at his family residence near the town of
Wana,
South Waziristan
South Mahsud Waziristan District () was a Districts of Pakistan, district in the Dera Ismail Khan Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, before splitting into the Lower South Waziristan District and the Upper South Waziristan D ...
. He was said to have fled to the area from
North Waziristan
North Waziristan District (, ) is a Districts of Pakistan, district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It is the northern part of Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and covering . The capital ...
after being injured during
Operation Zarb-e-Azb. His arrest was confirmed by the TTP in a statement released on 16 July.
However, later in July 2014, Reuters reported that Pakistani security officials and Pakistani Taliban commanders denied that Rashid was in custody. One military source described the initial reports of the arrest as a "mixup", while two associates of Rashid said the arrest report had been spread in an attempt to get him to react so that security forces could trace his whereabouts.
See also
*
Maulana Fazlullah
*
Abdul Rashid Ghazi
*
PAF Base Minhas
References
External links
Rashid video after freed by Militants
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rashid, Adnan
Living people
Pashtun people
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan members
1984 births
Pakistan Air Force officers
People from Swabi District
Escapees from Pakistani detention
Pakistani Islamists
21st-century Pakistani politicians