WANA, July 25: Tribal militant Abdullah Mehsud, who reportedly blew himself up inside a besieged compound in the Zhob district of Balochistan on Tuesday, was laid to rest in his ancestral Nano village in the South Waziristan Agency on Wednesday, witnesses said.

They said that as the body of the former Guantanamo Bay detainee was brought to the village, his supporters started firing in the air to pay homage to their leader. About 4,000 tribesmen including some militant commanders attended the last rituals. Senator Saleh Shah Qureshi led the funeral prayer.

Locals said that Abdullah Mehsud had returned to the tribal agency two days ago from the Helmand province of Afghanistan, where he was leading a Taliban offensive against the US forces.

The militant leader, who carried a bounty of Rs5 million on his head, went underground after the kidnapping of Chinese engineers in 2004.