London (CNN) Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended his attempts to secure the release of a UK citizen from Guantanamo Bay after reports that the former detainee carried out an ISIS suicide attack in Iraq this week. ISIS on its media affiliates claimed that Abu-Zakariya al-Britani -- a British citizen who initially went by Ronald Fiddler and later took the name Jamal Udeen al-Harith -- detonated a car bomb at an Iraqi army base southwest of Mosul this week. While a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said there had been no independent verification that the attacker was the former Guantanamo detainee, an official told CNN that UK intelligence services believe with "high confidence" that the bomber killed near Mosul was the former British inmate.Al-Harith reportedly carried out a car bombing in Iraq MondayBlair said he was paid compensation by a subsequent UK government
_-Harith spent more than two years imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay before being released in 2004 after pressure from the UK government led by Blair. _-Harith gave a harrowing account of life at the prison to a European Coucil parliamentary hearing in 2004, saying he had been regularly tortured, being forced to sit in stress positions, deprived of food and water, and given injections of unknown substances. Al-_ gave a harrowing account of life at the prison to a European Coucil parliamentary hearing in 2004, saying he had been regularly tortured, being forced to sit in stress positions, deprived of food and water, and given injections of unknown substances.