Pakistani border guards hold Scot

A British man reportedly detained near the Afghan border is a Scot who converted to Islam and fought with the mojahedin against the Russians, it was claimed yesterday.

The Foreign Office said yesterday that it was still trying to confirm that a British citizen, named as James Alexander McLintock, had been picked up by Pakistani authorities in north Waziristan, a remote region near a former al-Qaida training camp.

Mr McLintock, said to be 37 and from Dundee, was detained some 10 days ago. He spoke English and Arabic to border guards and said he was working for a non-governmental organisation. He carried a British passport and said his name was Yaqub.

A man who claimed to have been at school with Mr McLintock told the Daily Record newspaper yesterday that his former classmate was a quiet young man who studied at the Lawside Academy in Dundee before going on to university.

"He converted to Islam after going into the local mosque one day," the friend, who was not named, said. "I think he was at an age when he was trying to find himself. He went off to Pakistan to study Arabic and nobody heard from him for a long time.

"The next anyone heard was when we saw him on News at Ten one night with a Kalashnikov and a long beard. He was fighting alongside the mojahedin against the Russians. We were absolutely shocked. I never would have believed a guy like him would go off and fight in a war."

· A former adviser to the Home Office claimed the anti-US literature that Abdul Rahman Qureshi, a suspended imam at Feltham young offenders institution, was accused of showing to Muslim inmates merely amounted to Guardian articles about the bombing of Afghanistan.