Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan (L) Screenshot/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SbtA7__Vjw A terror leader wanted over the assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai has account in his name on LinkedIn, the networking site for professionals

A senior Taliban commander who has threatened attacks against Britain is using LinkedIn, the business networking site for professionals, in an apparent attempt to recruit terrorists.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, one of the world’s most notorious terrorist leaders, has 69 connections on LinkedIn, indicating a sizeable network. Ehsan does not hide his associations and openly promotes himself on LinkedIn as spokesman for TTP Jammat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Taliban.

He describes himself as “self-employed” and says he has been a spokesman since January 2010. Ehsan even lists his skills as “jihad and journalism” and provides details of his school, employment history and language skills. He also includes his photograph.

Pakistan authorities placed a $1 million (£650,000) bounty on his head after he boasted of the Taliban’s responsibility for the attempted assassination of Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head in October 2012 for wanting to go to school. Malala, now 17, was widely praised for her courage and later awarded the Nobel peace prize.

After the attack, Ehsan said: “She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol. She was young, but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas.”

Malala Yousafzai Christopher Furlong/Getty Images At the time Ehsan was spokesman for Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistan wing of the Taliban, which carried out the attack and other terrorist atrocities. Last year, Ehsan, along with other former commanders of the TTP, formed TTP Jammat-ul-Ahrar.

On his LinkedIn page Ehsan describes TTP Jammat-ul-Ahrar as his current employer. The group’s leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, is considered to be one of the most ruthless terrorists in the region and has been compared in terms of his barbarity to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

The disclosure that Ehsan has an open profile on LinkedIn is potentially embarrassing for the site. 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.

Ehsan has been increasingly active in recent months as his Taliban splinter group has tried to establish itself in the region. The group has close links to Britain, and, in October threatened attacks against the UK in reprisal for the arrest in London of Anjem Choudary, the radical Islamist cleric, and eight other British extremists.

One of Choudary’s closest confidantes, Misra Tariq Ali, an NHS surgeon, has joined Ehsan in hiding in Pakistan. Ali, 39 – as first reported by The Sunday Telegraph – fled the UK, where he faced assault charges, to join TTP Jammat-ul-Ahrar. Ali, who lived in east London, also appears to have a LinkedIn account, although his details are not visible to the public.

Ali and Ehsan later appeared in a recruitment video in which they goaded the Pakistan Army and urged its soldiers to rise up against the officers.

In a further message, Ehsan warned that his terrorist group planned attacks against the UK and its citizens abroad unless Scotland Yard ended its investigation into Choudary.

After being approached by The Telegraph, LinkedIn took down Ehsan’s account on Friday night.

A spokesman said the company’s security team had decided to “restrict it”, meaning it was no longer in operation. But she said it was not clear if the account belonged to Ehsan or was a fake account, established by another party. She said the IP address of the account, indicating where in the world it was set up, suggested it was fake. She said the “lack of Taliban recruiting messages” was another clue.

The spokesman added: “[I] Can’t say for certain that it is someone else … But I can say that our security team has a high degree of confidence that it is a fake account, which is reason enough to restrict it. [I] Also can’t say for certain who might have set it up if it is fake.”