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PAF officer-turned-jihadi talks about his change of heart
=============================================================================================ISLAMABAD - Adnan Rasheed, a former officer of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the mastermind of an assassination attempt on General Pervez Musharraf, has claimed in a rare interview that he was indoctrinated by a covert jihadi group which recruits officers from the three military services and utilises them to wage jihad along with the Taliban.
The interview has been published in the very first issue of an English-language jihadi magazine "Azan" which was launched by the Taliban, primarily to cater to well-educated Muslims.
Now a key commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), 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. Ehsan added that the Taliban had been working on the jailbreak plan for several months and were in touch with Adnan and other prisoners in the Bannu Central Jail.
In a most recent development, Adnan Rasheed has stated in a rare interview published in the May 5 issue of "Azan" that his first jihadi inclination emerged when India was compelled to release Maulana Masood Azhar (after the hijacking of an Indian plane in 2000). Importantly, he notes that he was about to go to Germany for higher education when the 9/11 terror attacks took place and his colleagues in the PAF persuaded him to pursue the jihadi path.
Narrating in a first-hand witness account, Adnan Rasheed says he joined a clandestine jihadi group functioning in the Pakistan Air Force under the name Idara Tul Pakistan, or the institution of Pakistan. The group's mission was, according to him, to recruit jihadis from all three wings of the Pakistani military - Army, Navy and the Air Force. Adnan Rasheed also notes how he was led by senior military officers to believe that the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) founder Maulana Masood Azhar was appointed the chief of the Pakistani Taliban by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the fugitive ameer of the Afghan Taliban. Adnan narrates how his boss granted him four months' leave to get training at a Jaish training camp in Mansehra district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and how he finally came to know that Masood Azhar was never appointed the ameer of Pakistani Taliban by Mullah Omar.
"Allah Almighty opened my eyes when the Jaish-e-Muhammad split into two factions – Maulana Masood Azhar's Khuddamul Islam and Haji Abdul Jabbar's Jamaatul Furqan. It dawned upon me that Masood and Jabbar had been working under ISI's command. So, I went to my chief of Idara Tul Pakistan, Dr Y and told him that there is no difference between us and the Jaishe-Muhammad. We are soldiers in uniform and they are soldiers without uniform. Dr Y told me that the Shura of Idara Tul Pakistan had appointed me chief for the Pakistan Air Force. We later decided to divide our Idara into three main branches - administration, intelligence and combat. The administration branch was meant to do two jobs - recruitment and fund raising; the intelligence branch was to do espionage while the combat branch was to hit and run. The Idara strongly suggested that no uniform personnel would take part in any mission inside Pakistan; rather it would recruit civilian jehadis for this job and they would be assisted with weapons, money and intelligence".
"We were joined by seven civilian brothers and one of them was appointed their chief. In September 2003, in a bid to meet Mullah Mohammad Omar, I, along with the civilian brothers, travelled to South Waziristan to fight in Baghar area of Angoor Adda against the Americans. But when we reached there, the Pakistan Army had already conducted its first operation against the Mujahideen under the command of Major General Faisal Alvi. Brothers Abdul Rahman (a Canadian national) and Hassan Mehsoon (a Chinese national) were martyred in this operation. While returning to Peshawar, I decided to take a U-Turn against the Pakistan Army to avenge the killing of my jehadi brothers. As I met the ameer of the Idara Tul Pakistan, Dr Y, (May Allah release him), we decided to wage jehad against Pakistan", Adnan concluded. -
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