Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) key commander Adnan Rasheed has been killed in an air strike by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in North Waziristan on Tuesday.
Sources said Rasheed along with his family was killed in an action by security forces in Mir Ali.
The bombardment was occurred on his home located in Hamzoi area on basis of intelligence reports while governmental sources have confirmed his death along with four family members including wife, song and daughter.
Adnan Rasheed was freed in an unprecedented jailbreak operation on April 15, 2012 when around 200 Taliban militants armed with guns, grenades and rockets attacked the high-security Bannu Central Jail and released 384 prisoners. TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan subsequently declared on April 20, 2012 that the jail break operation was chiefly meant to free Adnan Rasheed.
Interestingly, despite being an al-Qaeda linked convicted terrorist, Adnan was allowed to get married in the jail in 2010 and become father of a daughter. Coming from Chota Lahore village of the Swabi district, Adnan had joined the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in 1997, before being arrested for his role in an attempt to assassinate Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi on December 14, 2003. He was subsequently awarded death sentence by a Field General Court Martial (FGCM) on October 3, 2005 at Chaklala Base of PAF along with six other Air Force men. However, after being convicted, Adnan was shifted to the Bannu Central Jail from the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi for inexplicable reasons, only to be freed by the TTP.
He was the same TTP commander who wrote a sympathising letter to Malala Yousafzai and explained her why she was attacked by the TTP. He wrote, ‘When you were attacked it was shocking for me. I wished it would never happen and I had advised you before.’ He explained she was shot not because she went to school, but because she had spoken out against the Taliban in Pakistan.
Taliban sources have not yet confirmed or denied Rasheed’s killing.