London: A former Taliban militant, whose splinter group threatened to attack the UK in October, has reportedly made 69 connections on LinkedIn.
Ehsanullah Ehsan openly promotes himself as the spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (TTP-JA). He also described himself as “self-employed” and listed “jihad and journalism” as his skill on his LinkedIn account.
Providing details of his school, employment and language skills, Ehsan listed himself as spokesperson since January 2010 and TTP-JA as his ‘current employer.’
Pakistan authorities declared a 650,000 pound bounty on his head after he blatantly boasted of the Taliban’s responsibility for the attack on Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head in October 2012 for wanting to go to school.
Ehsan justified the attack by saying Yousafzai was preaching against Taliban and was promoting western culture in Pashtun areas. She also called President Barack Obama her idol, he said.
A spokeswoman for LinkedIn said the company’s security team had decided to “restrict” the account and it would no longer be in operation.
She added the social network site suspected that it was a fake account, pointing to the “lack of Taliban-recruiting messages.”
Previously, other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been criticised for failing to clamp down on hardliners using their sites to promote extremism.
(With ANI inputs)