Abdullah Mehsud

Abdullah Mehsud (Pashto: عبدالله مهسود‎; Urdu: عبدالله محسود‎; 1974 – 24 July 2007) was a member of the Mahsud tribe in South Waziristan, and a Pashtun militant commander who killed himself with a hand grenade after security forces raided his dwelling in Zhob, Balochistan, Pakistan.

American authorities later claimed that he had originally been a prisoner in the Guantanamo bay detainment camps, who was judicially released and subsequently "returned to the battlefield".

Early life

Abdullah Mehsud (Muhammad Alam Mahsud) was born in early 1974 in Nano village of South Waziristan, and was a member of the Mehsud clan Saleemi Khel in South Waziristan. Abdullah Mehsud fought against the Northern Alliance and lost a leg to a landmine in 1996.

Capture

During the opening days of Operation Enduring Freedom, Mehsud fought against U.S. and Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan. In December 2001, he surrendered to the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the Battle of Kunduz. He was handed over to the U.S. and spent 25 months in Guantanamo Bay detention camp, where he was fitted with a prosthetic limb. He was released by the U.S. and returned to South Waziristan.