ISLAMABAD, Mar 23:
The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to use suicide bombers to target former military ruler Pervez Musharraf when he returns home from self-exile to lead his party in the upcoming general election.
In a video released to reporters in northwest Pakistan today, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said Musharraf will be the “main target” of the militants on his return.
Ihsan asked Musharraf to surrender to the Taliban.
Adnan Rashid, a militant who was involved in an earlier attempt to assassinate 69-year-old Musharraf, said the Taliban had formed a special squad of suicide bombers to target the former President.
Rashid, who escaped from prison last year, is shown in the video training a group of Taliban fighters assigned to target Musharraf.
He threatened Musharraf and called on him to surrender to the Taliban.
“Otherwise we will target you at such a place you will not know,” he said.
In the six-minute video, both Ihsan and Rashid referred to the 2007 military raid on the radical Lal Masjid in Islamabad and said, “We will not leave you alive.”
Ihsan also invited insurgents from Balochistan province to join the Taliban.
The raid against extremist elements holed up in Lal Masjid was ordered by Musharraf, who was also the army chief at the time.
Rashid was accused of masterminding several attacks on Musharraf.
The former junior technician of the Pakistan Air Force was sentenced to death by a military court for an attempt on Musharraf’s life in 2003.
In April last year, Rashid was among 384 prisoners who escaped from the Central Jail at Bannu in northwest Pakistan after it was attacked by some 100 Taliban fighters.
The Taliban later said they had engineered the jailbreak to free Rashid.
Musharraf has announced he will return to Pakistan from Dubai on Sunday, ending nearly four years of self-exile.
He has said he will lead his All Pakistan Muslim League party in the parliamentary polls on May 11.
The military ruler seized power in a 1999 coup and stepped down after he was threatened with impeachment in 2008.
He left the country in April 2009. (PTI)
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