Former Gitmo detainee now America's ally in Libya

DARNAH: For over five years, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu was a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay prison, judged "a probable member of al-Qaida". Now, Qumu, 51, is a notable figure in the Libyan rebels' fight to oust Muammar Gaddafi.

According to the New York Times, he is reportedly a leader of a ragtag band of fighters known as the Darnah Brigade in northeast Libya.

The paper further says that this former enemy and prisoner of the US is now an ally of sorts, a remarkable turnabout resulting from shifting American policies rather than any obvious change in Qumu.

He was a tank driver in the Libyan army in the 1980s, when the CIa was spending billions to support religious militants trying to drive Soviet troops out of Afghanistan.

Qumu moved to Afghanistan in the early 1990s. He was captured in Pakistan after 9/11, and accused of being a member of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and sent to Guantanamo.

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