MANSEHRA, Oct 29: People in the mountainous region of the Kohistan district are eagerly waiting for Mohammad Sagheer who was released from the Guantanamo Bay with a few other Al Qaeda suspects a couple of days back.

Sagheer, 60, who ran a saw machine unit before leaving for Afghanistan to take part in Jihad, hails from the Kaseer village.

Police officials in Dassu, the district headquarters of Kohistan, told Dawn that Sagheer was a die-hard supporter of the banned Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi and had joined thousands of others to fight for the Taliban against the US coalition forces.

TNSM leader Maulana Sufi Mohammad is behind bars on many charges, including illegal border crossing and possession of arms.

Hundreds of the TNSM fighters are unaccounted for. Hundreds others are in jails in Afghanistan, notwithstanding the fact that over 700 have been released by the Afghan authorities.

Sagheer, according to the police, had been in the forefront of the TNSM movement launched for the enforcement of Shariat in Kohistan in 1995. When the US launched war on Afghanistan, Sagheer took active part in rousing anti-American sentiments in Kohistan.

When Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai addressed a public meeting in Besham soon after the allied forces had attacked Afghanistan Sagheer disappeared, his nephew Mohammad Jan told Dawn.

Jan said that Sagheer’s family was worried about his whereabouts but was almost certain that he had gone to Afghanistan for Jihad.

Jan said that Sagheer lived in a kutcha house in Kaseer and had nine sons and eight daughters from two wives.

Jan said that news of Sagheer’s release from the US detention centre had spread like a jungle fire in Kohistan and people in Pattan are waiting for his return.