Poems by Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost were published in the US to critical acclaim in 2007

A former prisoner who was hailed in America as “the poet of Guantanamo Bay” has re-emerged as the leader of Isis in Afghanistan.

Poems by Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost were published in the US to critical acclaim in 2007. The Afghan, who was imprisoned in Cuba accused of being a member of al-Qaeda, wrote 25,000 lines of verse during his three years there and complained that the bulk of his output was seized and not returned to him.

Muslim Dost was released in 2005 and claimed that he had been framed as a terrorist by the Pakistani authorities.

Much of his Guantanamo verse was written with his fingernail on Styrofoam cups; the US authorities had refused to issue pencils to the prisoners because they were