DERA ISMAIL KHAN- The Pakistani military has captured a Taliban commander who once tried to blow up former president Pervez Musharraf, security officials said.
Adnan Rashid, who was captured on Friday in South Waziristan in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, is the first well-known Taliban commander taken since the military launched an offensive in neighboring North Waziristan last month.
He was injured in a shootout during his capture in a house where he was living with his family in the Wana area of South Waziristan, the officials said.
The Pakistan army has said it will drive Taliban insurgents from their key strongholds in the region and indicated that it would expand its offensive into the Bajaur tribal region, further north.
The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, said it would continue to ramp up attacks on Pakistani security
forces in Bajaur, along the Afghan border.
Rashid, believed to be in his mid-30s, is a former Pakistani air force officer who tried to become a suicide bomber before he was jailed for a 2003 attempt to blow up then-President Musharraf.
He escaped from jail in 2012 along with nearly 400 other militants. Following his release, he claimed responsibility for masterminding another jailbreak that freed 250 prisoners.
He also made a series of YouTube videos and wrote an open letter attempting to justify the assassination attempt on schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai. Nation News
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