Difference between revisions of "Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani"

US Government biographyNAME Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani

PHONETICS geh-LAH-nee
KEY ALIAS(ES) Haytham al-Kini
AFFILIATION Al-Qa'ida
NATIONALITY Tanzanian

An al-Qa'ida document forger and travel facilitator, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani -- known in al-Qa'ida circles as Haytham al-Kini -- rose in stature after 11 September 2001 to become one of al-Qa'ida's top forgers. Although Ghailani was not directly involved in operational planning, he worked for the now-deceased Hamza Rabi'a -- then al-Qa'ida's chief of external operations -- and forged or altered passports for many al-Qa'ida members. Most of his work involved substituting photos in passports and modifying visa stamps.

Ghailani lived at various houses in North and South Waziristan in 2003 and 2004, which in conjunction with his forgery work, allowed him to meet many high- and low-level al-Qa'ida operatives. Ghailani, born around 1974 in Zanzibar, Tanzania.. is one of the FBI's Most Wanted terrorists and has been indicted for his role in the East Africa Embassy bombings on 7 August 1998. Ghailani, who knew many of the Africans involved in the attacks, originally met one of the operatives, Fahid Muhammad Ali Msalem, through a mutual friend; he later befriended the rest of the group after he began traveling between Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Mombasa, Kenya, transporting and selling various items and doing odd jobs. Msalem asked Ghailani at various times to help the group purchase a truck, gas cylinders, and TNT that would later be used to construct a car bomb, requests Ghailani fulfilled.

Ghailani and several other operatives moved to Afghanistan -- which Ghailani had wanted to do for several years -- the day before the Embassy bombings. After arriving in Afghanistan, Ghailani attended regular training at one of al-Qa'ida's camps and served as a rank-and-file soldier. Ghailani eventually became a cook for Usama Bin Ladin before joining a group of fellow Africans in 2001 who ran al-Qa'ida's document forgery office in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Ghailani fled to Karachi, Pakistan, after the fall of the Taliban, but high-profile arrests in Karachi in April 2003 convinced him to move to South Waziristan.
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