PESHAWAR: Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JA), a splinter group of proscribed Tehreek-i- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has released video of a renegade army doctor, asking military officers and soldiers to join Taliban’.

Sitting beside JA spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan in the video, the man with black beard and wearing black turban is introducing himself as Capt Dr Tariq Ali who claimed to have served in Frontier Corps Balochistan, 80 Brigade Siachen, and various places in Punjab. He cited posting in Waziristan the reason for leaving the army.

He said in fluent English that he had spent two tenures in North and South Waziristan agencies and refused order of the Second in Command official when he was asked to go for the third time.

“I refused to obey the orders of 2-IC (Officer Second in Command) and a few days later I took a flight to London,” he said. He is critical of the media and blames it for spreading a bad image of Taliban.

He called upon officers to join Mujahideen for the enforcement of shariah and Islamic system.

Addressing senior officers and soldiers in Urdu and English Tariq Ali who is also known by the name of Abu Obaidah Al-Islamabadi said that his “PA” number was 103907 and he passed out with 18th course of the Army Medical College.

He said that he worked in the army for nearly seven years and about nine years ago he left the army and migrated to London where he did general surgical training in London and Cambridge.

Simultaneously, he said he used to call non-Muslims to Islam.

“Allah blessed me with the passion of Jihad. I left Britain with an intention to go to Iraq and join Islamic State, but I was arrested on the way and sent to prison in Croatia,” said Dr Tariq.

Then he was deported to Pakistan and initially he faced some difficulties in the beginning. Later he joined JA. “May be it was the will of Allah that I should join the Mujahideen of Khorasan instead of Iraq and Syria,” he said.

There was no independent confirmation of the doctor’s claim.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2014