By Paul Anderson
BBC correspondent in Islamabad |
 Pakistan is an ally of the US in the 'war on terror' |
Pakistani officials say most of the remaining Pakistani prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay have been released and have returned to Pakistan. A group of 34 former detainees from the US prison camp arrived at a military base near Islamabad on Saturday.
Officials say they were taken into custody for interrogation and will be freed after that is completed.
Pakistani officials say the release was the result of persistent negotiations with the United States.
'No threat'
Five or six suspects, defined by the Americans as unlawful combatants, are still being held in Guantanamo and their fate is unknown.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Pakistanis went to Afghanistan to fight with the Taleban in the 1990s and later in 2001 against the US-led coalition.
Those who were not killed or fled were captured and either transferred to American custody by Northern Alliance warlords or held by Afghans.
Earlier this month Afghan President Hamid Karzai freed more than 350 prisoners after striking an agreement on prisoner swaps with President Pervez Musharraf.
Some of the prisoners released from Guantanamo earlier this year have complained of abusive treatment by their American jailors.
Pakistan has long maintained that prisoners held in Guantanamo and in Afghanistan did not represent a continuing security threat, but that they were seduced into fighting jihad or holy war by zealous religious leaders in Pakistan.
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