He has lost his saw-mill business, his family has sunk into debt and his children have had to quit school.

Sagheer, 54, said he was with a Muslim missionary group, preaching in northern Afghanistan, when the Taliban were ousted weeks after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Picked up by troops of an Afghan warlord allied with the United States, Sagheer soon found himself in US custody in Cuba. His family had no idea where he was.

A year later he was home but things have never been the same, said Sagheer in an interview in his mountain village in Pakistan's rugged North West Frontier Province.

"In the first two or three months after my release, I was unaware of anything but later I realised my sons had borrowed a lot of money to track me down," said Sagheer, sitting on the floor of a small hut with his sons and other male relatives.

Sagheer's family borrowed more than 1,500,000 rupees (17,363 pounds) to pay people to search for him in Afghanistan.

Struggling to pay back the debt, Sagheer was forced to sell a small piece of land and a house to cover some of it. But the people he owes money want the rest.

"The situation is worse because the lenders are demanding their money. I have nothing left except this house. If I sell it I'll have no shelter," said the black-beared man, sitting with his 7-year-old mentally retarded son, Shamsul Haq, on his lap.

"THE TALIBAN ARE GOOD"

If things weren't bad enough, a huge earthquake struck parts of northern Pakistan last October, including Sagheer's village.

His main four-room concrete house was destroyed as well as a workshop where he kept a large mechanical saw with that he used to cut wood, his sole source of income.

"Now I'm doing nothing. I'm jobless."