70 Facts About Ahmed Khadr

Ahmed Said Khadr was a Canadian citizen who began working in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Ahmed Khadr set up two orphanages for children whose parents had been killed in the Soviet invasion of the 1980s.

Ahmed Khadr funded the construction of Makkah Mukarama Hospital in Afghanistan with his own savings, as well as seven medical clinics in the refugee camps of Pakistan.

Ahmed Khadr accepted a plea deal and pleaded guilty to charges of war crimes in October 2010.

Ahmed Khadr was repatriated to Canada in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released on bail in 2015.

Ahmed Khadr was killed on October 2,2003, along with al-Qaeda and Taliban members, in a shootout by Pakistani security forces near the Afghanistan border.

Ahmed Khadr was born in Egypt in 1948 to Mohamed Zaki Khadr and Munira Osman.

Ahmed Khadr frequently stayed at the house of his much older half-brother Ahmed Fouad.

Ahmed Khadr was accepted at the University of Ottawa to study Computer Programming.

Ahmed Khadr was impressed by his calmness and thought he was a good listener.

Ahmed Khadr came to agree with their notions of Sharia law, and advocated Islamic rule for his native Egypt.

Ahmed Khadr started working at Bell Northern Research, while writing his masters thesis, entitled Development of a CSSL interface to GASP IV.

Ahmed Khadr wanted to help the Muslim widows and orphans in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Khadr's wife took the three children to Scarborough, Canada, where they lived with her parents.

Ahmed Khadr told friends that he had no intentions of helping to fight the Soviets, only of helping the victims of the invasion.

Ahmed Khadr later said that Khadr was a "man of respect" in the city, and seemed "entirely humanitarian and not ideological at all".

Ahmed Khadr conducted fundraising for his charitable work, giving speeches at mosques and community events.

That year, Ahmed Khadr met Abdullah Anas, an Algerian who had helped fight the Soviets in northern Afghanistan.

Ahmed Khadr became acquainted with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the founder of the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan and a mujahideen warlord, with whom Khadr would later nurture a close relationship.

Six days later, the 39-year-old Ahmed Khadr was featured in the Toronto Star, calling attention to the plight of Afghanistan.

Ahmed Khadr condemned the Soviets for cluster bomblets and landmines disguised as colorful toys, attracting children who picked them up and sometimes lost limbs.

In 1987, Ahmed Khadr convinced his wife to let her parents take care of their sickly son Ibrahim in Scarborough.

Ahmed Khadr said she could help a hundred Afghan children in Peshawar if she sent him back for care.

Ahmed Khadr often praised the bravery of the fighters in the Battle of Jaji to his children, but never suggested that he had participated.

That year, Ahmed Khadr joined Human Concern International full time; it was a Canadian-based charity operating in Peshawar with which he had been cooperating.

Ahmed Khadr gained the support of the World Food Program, and a $325,000 donation from the Canadian International Development Agency.

Around this time in 1989, Ahmed Khadr solicited aid from Canadian Doreen Wicks.

Ahmed Khadr agreed to have her own charity send medical supplies to help the Afghan orphans.

Ahmed Khadr promised to help raise funds for a new Peshawar-based charity, to be named al-Tahaddi, if Azzam gave him an endorsement to help him appeal to Canadian mosques.

When he returned to Peshawar, Ahmed Khadr accused Azzam of "confiscating" the money he had raised, and spreading rumors that he was a Western spy by having faxed all of al-Tahaddi's associates with a list of accusations against Ahmed Khadr and announcing new leadership.

Ahmed Khadr demanded a Sharia court be convened to mediate the matter, and sought Sheikh Rabbani, Sheikh Sayyaf, Yunus Khalis or Gulbuddin Hekmatyra to arbitrate.

Eight months after the end of the Soviet invasion, Ahmed Khadr was profiled in the Toronto Star newspaper, pleading for Western aid to help Afghanistan rebuild; he noted the nation had the highest child mortality rate in the world.

In September 1991, Ahmed Khadr gave a fundraising lecture entitled Afghanistan: The Untold Story at the Markham Islamic Centre.

Ahmed Khadr described the suffering of the widows and orphans, but emphasized the valor of the mujahideen who had repelled the Soviets.

In 1992, Ahmed Khadr sustained severe shrapnel wounds which tore apart his right side, puncturing his bladder and a kidney.

Ahmed Khadr had become a demanding workaholic who began alienating his colleagues.

Ahmed Khadr visited the camp once after they started there, to meet with Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi.

In Pakistan, Ahmed Khadr renovated an abandoned building, which had previously used by the KhAD secret police, to be used for his charity, but once it was refurbished, the government announced they would re-take control of the building.

An angry Ahmed Khadr wrote a letter to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, complaining that he should be compensated for the money he spent in fixing the building.

Ahmed Khadr clashed with the Taliban again when they objected to the fact he had opened a school for girls, who were not allowed to receive an education under Taliban law.

When Mohamad Elzahabi was injured in a 1995 battle in Kabul, Ahmed Khadr visited him the Peshawar hospital.

In July 1995, Ahmed Khadr arranged for his daughter Zaynab to marry an Egyptian man named Khalid Abdullah, "an Egyptian guest of the Taliban" from the Sudan, in December, and Maha began preparing an apartment for the couple in the family's house.

Ahmed Khadr was charged with aiding terrorism, and faced the death penalty, although investigators conceded they "did not have much evidence" linking him to the bombing.

Ahmed Khadr was interviewed in hospital, where he denounced Foreign Minister Assef Ahmad Ali's claim that he had financed the explosives, detonation devices, and both vehicles used in the bombing.

Ahmed Khadr stated that his work consisted solely of charitable work to provide food and schooling to Afghan orphans.

Ahmed Khadr's plight caught the attention of the Canadian Arab Federation and the Jewish Civil Rights Educational Foundation of Canada, the latter of whom wrote to Pakistan urging that Khadr be afforded a fair trial, and expressing their concern "about unfair and unnecessary hardship placed on individuals like Khadr" in Pakistan's efforts to combat terrorism.

The Canadian-Muslim Civil Liberties Association similarly gathered a petition of 800 signatures and presented it to both Canadian and Pakistani officials, and Human Concern International executive director Kaleem Akhtar echoed his certainty that Ahmed Khadr was not involved in the blast, stating that "politics was not his cup of tea", and subsequently started a legal defence fund for Ahmed Khadr.

In 1997, while living in the Pathan district of Peshawar, Ahmed Khadr began visiting Nazim Jihad, bin Laden's family home in Jalalabad.

At an unspecified time during his life in Pakistan, Ahmed Khadr made use of his master's degree and provided computer training and systems "for the government employees from 14 departments".

Also that year, Mahmoud Jaballah met Ahmed Khadr, having invited him to share a cup of tea and discuss their mutual experiences in Peshawar, Pakistan, after Ahmed Khadr's mother-in-law took his wife grocery shopping.

In June 1998, the family moved into Nazim Jihad while Ahmed Khadr was away; but were only there a short time before bin Laden moved and didn't invite the family to accompany him.

Ahmed Khadr caved to the demands of his "problem child", Abdurahman, and purchased him a horse of his own.

Reports suggest that when Pakistani forces stormed the apartment of an Algerian named Abu Elias in Lahore, Ahmed Khadr was actually present but was either not recognised by the troops, or allowed to leave.

In 1999, Khadr met with bin Laden again to try to mitigate hostilities between bin Laden, the Taliban and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom Ahmed had recently met in Iran.

Ahmed Khadr was sanctioned, and UN states were forbidden from commerce with him.

In January 2001, Ahmed Khadr's name was added to a United Nations list of individuals who supported terrorism associated with Bin Laden.

Mr Speaker, Ahmed Khadr Al-Kadr was named by the United Nations as a terrorist.

Ahmed Khadr is a close associate of Osama bin Laden.

Shortly afterwards, Bin Laden approached Ahmed Khadr and asked him to join the Mujahideen Shura Council, organising the retreat of families from the Northern Alliance onslaught, to the relative safety of the Pakistan border.

Ahmed Khadr was noted for maintaining a close relationship with Maulvi Nazir.

In July 2003, the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress stated that Ahmed Khadr's last known whereabouts were in Afghanistan in November 2001.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Khadr was asked to organise militants operating near the border of Shagai, Pakistan, and subsequently asked his son Abdullah and Hamza al-Jowfi to help him procure weapons.

Ahmed Khadr clashed with Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, arguing that guerilla tactics would prove more useful than front line battle.

Pakistan initially reported that Ahmed Khadr had escaped hours before the raid.

At one point it was reported that Ahmed Khadr had lived, and only his son had been killed.

Ahmed Khadr's name was not included in any of the lists of deceased published in local media, and the captured Abdulkareem was unable to identify his father among the photos of corpses later presented to him, although the Islamic Observation Centre reported that Ahmed Khadr was "caught" in the battle and died defending Abdulkareem.

Ahmed Khadr said this likely marked the first time terrorist acts have resulted in civil liabilities.

In one of the latest Musharraf-led campaigns, several mujahidin were killed, including brother martyr Ahmad Said Ahmed Khadr, nicknamed Abu Abdurahman al-Kanadi.

The Prime Minister had intervened to ensure that Ahmed Khadr got a fair trial, and the press said that he had intervened after Ahmed Khadr's release.

On February 7,2008, the National Post reported that a biography of Ahmed Khadr was published on an "al Qaeda web-site" as part of an on-line book entitled Book of 120 Martyrs in Afghanistan.