Draft:Adnan Rashid
| Adnan Rashid | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name | Adnan Rashid |
| Other Names | Qari Shoaib |
| Personal Details | |
| Birth Place | Lahore, Pakistan |
Adnan Rashid is a Pakistani member and commander of the Taliban movement in Pakistan and also a former officer of the Pakistan Air Force[1]. He is the head of the Ansar al-Asir group (one of the units of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan). This group is responsible for the release of militant prisoners.
Personal life
Rashid is of Pashtun ethnicity. He is from the Chota Lahore area, which is located in the Swabi district. He joined the Pakistan Air Force as a young technician in 1997, but was later expelled from the army due to suspicious activities. Adnan Rashid was fluent in Urdu, Pashto, and English, and was an expert in bomb-making and an electronic warfare technician[2].
Military activity
Rashid was sentenced to death for his involvement in the attack on General Pervez Musharraf, the then President of Pakistan, in December 2003. However, he was freed from prison along with 400 other prisoners during a Taliban militants' attack on Bannu prison in 2012[3].
"Adnan Rashid", who had escaped from "Bannu" prison along with 400 Taliban prisoners in 2012, was arrested at his home in the center of South Waziristan. He was the mastermind behind the 30 July 2013 attack on Dera Ismail Khan prison; in this attack, 175 prisoners, including 35 prominent militants, were freed from the prison[4]
Rashid, in a letter sent to Malala Yousafzai, who survived the Pakistan Taliban assassination attempt, wrote that he wished such an incident had never happened, but told her that she was attacked because she was speaking against the Taliban[5]
Adnan was arrested on 11 July 2014 along with three other Taliban members by Pakistani security forces at his residence near the town of Wana in South Waziristan. It is said that he fled to this area after being injured in the Zarb-e-Azb operation in North Waziristan. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan confirmed news of his arrest in a statement on 16 July[6]. However, in July 2014, Reuters reported that Pakistani security officials and Pakistani Taliban commanders denied his arrest. A military source described initial reports about this arrest as "contradictory", while two of Rashid's associates said that fake news of Rashid's arrest was published to force him to react so that security forces could find his hiding place. Rashid was arrested in 2004 on charges of attempting to assassinate "Pervez Musharraf", the former President of Pakistan, and was sentenced to death, but in 2012 he managed to escape from prison due to a Taliban attack on the "Bannu" region prison[7].