Khadr family

The Khadr family (أسرة خضر) is an Arab family living in Canada noted for their ties to Osama bin Laden and connections to al Qaeda.^[1][2]

Members

Maha (youngest daughter in arms), Zaynab (Abdulkareem in arms), Abdurahman and Abdullah.

The Khadr family is composed of

• Ahmed Khadr (1948–2003), father, an Egyptian-Canadian, killed in 2003, potentially by Pakistani security forces;
• Maha el-Samnah (born 1957), mother, a Palestinian-Canadian;
• Their children:
  • Zaynab Khadr (born 1979 in Ottawa), daughter;
  • Abdullah Khadr (born 1981 in Ottawa), son arrested in Canada in 2005 and held for five years while an extradition request from US was reviewed. Ontario Superior Court ordered him released in 2010;^[3][4][5]
  • Abdurahman Khadr (born 1982), son;
  • Ibrahim Khadr (1985–1988), a son who died of congenital heart defect;^[6]
  • Omar Khadr (born 1986), son captured by American forces following a 2002 firefight and held in Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to 2012;^[7]
  • Abdulkareem Khadr (born 1989), son, became paralyzed in the attack where his father died; and
  • a daughter (born 1991).

Location

Ahmed Khadr went to college in Canada, where he met and married Maha el-Samnah. They moved to Pakistan in 1985 to work with Afghan refugees following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In 1992 the family returned to Canada and lived near Bloor/Dundas following an incident in Afghanistan that left the father Ahmed disabled and needing rehabilitation. The family later left and returned to Pakistan. In 1995 Ahmed Khadr was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan, but was later released.

During this time, the family stayed at Nazim Jihad, the home of Osama bin Laden in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.^[8] They stayed at the compound the following year during the father's absence. The family claims they stayed two days, while the FBI maintains they stayed for a month.^[8][9]

The family subsequently moved to the Karte Parwan neighbourhood of Kabul and lived there from 1999–2001.^[10] The Khadrs were registered as operators of a Canadian charity, and eventually did their work out of their home.^[8]

Following the Invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the family joined a convoy leaving Kabul to travel towards Gardez. They later discovered that their intended residence had been bombed.^[11]

The family then traveled to an orphanage that Ahmed Khadr had run. They eventually moved in with a Pashto family in a hut in the mountains, where Ahmed visited monthly.^[11]

Controversy

In 2002 Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan and was detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for approximately ten years. His brother Abdurahman Khadr had been arrested and worked as an undercover informant with the CIA while at Guantanamo, and later continued to work undercover in Bosnia.^[12]

Ahmed Khadr was killed in 2003 near the Afghanistan border by what has been described in various sources as Pakistan security forces or a US drone. On April 9, 2004, Maha and Abdulkareem used the family's savings to return to Canada;^[13] The politicians Stockwell Day, Bob Runciman and John Cannis were among those in a public outcry calling for the Khadrs' citizenship to be revoked, and for the pair to be deported.^[14] Others suggested it was unfair to revoke citizenship from people who held views contrary to the government or majority.^[14]

Some Canadians complained that the Khadrs had "taken advantage of" Canada, living off its social services, while decrying it as a morally corrupted country.^[15] Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty dissented, stating that the province would recognise the family's right to Ontario Health Insurance Plan medical coverage and to be treated like any other Canadian family.^[16]

In 2005, following the oldest daughter Zaynab's return to the country, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer Konrad Shourie said, "The entire family is affiliated with al Qaeda and has participated in some form or another with these criminal extremist elements".^[17]

A noted friend of the family, former Pakistani Air Force officer and ISI agent Khalid Khawaja, spoke in their defense; he said that they were being unfairly targeted by Canadian authorities because of a deference to the United States (who held their youngest son), and Islamophobia.^[18] Since returning to Canada, the Khadr family has been described as "poverty-stricken".^[19]

In their 2008 report concerning Mahmoud Jaballah, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) stated that Omar and his older brother Abdulkareem attended terror training camps.^[20] In late October 2010, Omar Khadr pleaded guilty to charges against him in a plea agreement before a Military Commission at Guantanamo, admitting to having received "one-on-one terrorist training from an al-Qaeda operative and that he threw the grenade that killed U.S. Sergeant Christopher Speer".^[21] He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, in addition to the time already served. In 2012 he was repatriated to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Representation in other media

• Son of Al-Qaeda, 2008, PBS Frontline documentary featuring Abdurahman Khadr, also included conversations with other members of his family. Transcript and excerpts from interviews available at website.

References

External links

• article about the Khadrs, Macleans
• "The Good Son", National Post, December 28, 2002
• "Khadr mother and son return to Canada", Globe and Mail
• "In Canada, an Outcast Family Finds Support", Washington Post, June 9, 2005
• "The Khadr effect", Globe and Mail, October 3, 2005