London, Asharq Al-Awsat- The leader of a group of suspected Islamic militants who escaped from a US air base in Afghanistan, was identified, for the first time, on Wednesday as the Libyan Hassan Qaid, also known as Younis al Sahrawai, who had studied Islamic Shariaa in Mauritania prior to joining the ranks of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (al Jamaa al Islamiya al Libiya al Muqatila) in Afghanistan.

He and three other suspected Islamic militants detained at the Bagram base, north of the capital Kabul, successfully fled from US custody on 11th July 2005.

Naaman bin Othman, a Libyan expert in Islamist groups told Asharq al Awsat that Hassan Qaid, who featured in a videotape broadcast on al Arabiyyah channel earlier this week was an outstanding student. Born in the 1970s, he is renown for writing the a book entitled “Ijmaa (consensus) and its significance in Islamic Shariaa” in response to Dr. Fadil, also known at Sheikh Abdul Qadir Abdul Aziz, the Islamic Jihad leader’s book, “Al Jaami fi Talab al Ilm al Sharif”. Last month, the Libyan militant had written a letter broadcast on a number of extremist websites affiliated with al Qaeda discussing “the truth on practices in US jails”.