The young Pakistani militant pounds a boxing bag, removes a pistol from its holster and fires in slow motion across sunlit fields.
“After eight years in a death cell, he came out and is now back on the battlefield,” intones the YouTube video voiceover.
Adnan Rasheed, the long-haired, laughing star of the video, escaped that death cell and set up an Islamist group specialising in jailbreaks, masterminding the July 30 raid on Dera Ismail Khan prison that freed 250 prisoners, including Taliban militants.
A well-funded alliance of fighters armed with explosives and rocket-propelled grenades, carried out the raid with military-like precision.
Militants from the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, banned Sunni sectarian group Lashkar e Jhangvi and al Qaeda cooperated in the jailbreak, security officials and militants have said.
Several militant groups have broken up after short periods and the durability of Ansaral Aseer is not yet clear. But the story of 33-year-old Rasheed, jailed for trying to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf, illustrates how low-ranking foot-soldiers can evolve into prominent militant commanders.
AN OFFICER NICKNAMED ‘TALIBAN’
As a young air force officer, Rasheed dreamt of studying in Germany, he told the militant magazine, Azan.
He decided to join the Afghan Taliban after the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.
His desertion earned him the nickname ‘Taliban’ and 14 days in military jail.
Later, he tried to become a suicide bomber but returned to the air force, discouraged after his militant group split and also because he wanted to fight against India, Rasheed told the magazine.
In 2003, angered by Musharraf’s alliance with the US, Rasheed and three other members of the air force tried to assassinate Musharraf.
They were jailed, but last year Rasheed escaped with nearly 400 other inmates when militants attacked the prison.
Since then, Rasheed has appeared in two videos of Ansaral Aseer, dedicated to freeing militant prisoners.
In a video released in January, Rasheed can be seen sitting cross-legged under a tree with two bearded men who speak Russian and German.
“My beloved brothers behind the bars …I did not forget you.” Rasheed says in Urdu.
“The purpose of this group is to make your release possible by all means,” he says in the video.
In a second video called “Death Squad for Musharraf”, Rasheed threatens to send the former president, charged with the 2007 murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, “to hell” and his small group of masked fighters perform push ups, leapfrogs and shooting exercises.
Last month, Rasheed wrote a letter justifying the Taliban’s attempted killing of Malala Yousafzai, a campaigner for girls’ education in Pakistan.
So far, Rasheed’s group is relatively unknown. The Taliban have other well-established sub-units, including the Tora Shpa or “Black Night” which raises cash through bank robberies and kidnappings, and the Khorasan, who torture and kill those suspected of directing drone strikes.
AL QAEDA BACKING
Ansaral Aseer was funded by the Taliban and helped by al Qaeda trainers, two Taliban militants said.
“Ansaral Aseer’s aim is to attack the jails and sub-jails where our ‘mujahideen’ brothers are present,” a senior Taliban commander said.
“Financially it is supported by a number of groups, al Qaeda provides support and training on how to use weapons to the new recruits,” he said.
Militant sub-groups frequently disband or change names as loyalties shift or to confuse the security services,” said Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) ResearchCenter official Saifullah Mahsud.
The FATAResearchCenter tracks militant activity in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The Ansaral Aseer group was unheard of, even amongst militants, before the DI Khan jailbreak, he said.
He said that the attack highlighted the militants’ ability to infiltrate the security forces.
A handful of fighters started to forge contacts with the police and other prison personnel, three months before the attack, a security official said.
One such sympathiser opened the prison’s main gate for the militants, he said.
The jailbreak itself had been meticulously planned. Some fighters had donned police uniforms whereas others disguised themselves as a military convoy from the Taliban stronghold in North Waziristan.
Plain-clothed fighters cut the jails power supply and set up nine roadblocks to ambush reinforcements.
Radio messages tricked the soldiers into preparing for an attack on the barracks.
The tactics were so successful that the attackers did not use the seven suicide bombers they had on standby, the security official said.
After the attack, the authorities said that they would beef up security around high-profile detainees. But few think that will help in deterring future raids.
“We are going to see more of these attacks,” the security official said.
