Via Reuters:

Gaza’s Islamist Hamas government has freed a militant group’s leader who is believed to have ties to al Qaeda and had been detained for 17 months, a source from a Jihadist Salafi group said on Friday.

Hisham Al-Saedni, also known as Abu Al-Waleed Al-Maqdissi, was freed late on Thursday, the source said. Hamas declined immediate comment.

Saedni, in his late 50s, is believed to head the Jihadist Salafi group Tawhid and Jihad (One God and Holy War). The group adopts an Islamist ideology shared by al Qaeda, and sources said that Saedni himself joined al Qaeda in Iraq at the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Hamas had accused Saedni of attempting to disrupt public order in the Gaza Strip and arrested him on March 4, 2011. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s allies in 2007 following a brief civil war.