Pakistan has freed a senior al-Qaeda commander, who served as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden, according to a senior security source, raising fresh questions about the country’s commitment to tackling terrorism…

Rahimullah Yusufzai, an analyst who has interviewed senior al-Qaeda figures including bin Laden, said his release was a puzzle.

“They could only have released him with the say so of America or if maybe there really was no evidence or he was not that important,” he said.

As the security coordinator of the Black Guard, the elite unit charged with protecting bin Laden, he would once have been in close contact with the al-Qaeda leader, according to The Long War Journal which has profiled the Afghan-born doctor.