Difference between revisions of "Walid Bin 'Attash"

US Government biographyNAME Walid Bin 'Attash

PHONETICS wah-LEED bin AH-tush
KEY ALIAS(ES) Khallad Bin 'Attash, Silver
AFFILIATION Al-Qa'ida
NATIONALITY Yemeni, born and raised in Saudi Arabia

Walid Bin 'Attash, best known as Khallad, was a key al-Qa'ida operative from 1998 until his capture in 2003. Khallad, who is 27, is the scion of a prominent terrorist family: his father, Muhammad, was close to Usama Bin Ladin. and several of Khallad's brothers went to Afghanistan to train and fight in the 1990s; two of these brothers were killed -- including one during US airstrikes in Afghanistan in late 2001 -- and another, Hassan, has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since 2004.

Khallad arrived in Afghanistan in about 1995 and trained al a number of camps. In 1996, after Bin Ladin's return to Afghanistan from Sudan, Khallad alternated between serving as a bodyguard for the al-Qa'ida leader and participating in combat against the Northern Alliance; he lost his right leg during a battlefield accident in 1997. In 1998, Bin Ladin began using Khallad operationally, first as the al-Qa'ida leader's intermediary to al-Qa'ida Arabian Peninsula network chief 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri; together during 1998 and 1999, Khallad and Nashiri worked together on the maritime plot that culminated in the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. In early 1999. Bin Ladin reportedly selected him to become a hijacker in the operation on 11 September 2001, but he was arrested in Yemen in April of that year while attempting to obtain a US visa because local authorities suspected he was a different extremist. Although his brief imprisonment blocked his travel to the United States, Khallad otherwise assisted in the operation. including helping Bin Ladin select additional hijackers and traveling to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok during December 1999-January 2000 to meet with hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar and to take two flights on a US-flagged airliner to assess inflight security procedure.

In late 1999, Bin Ladin asked him to help select about two-dozen experienced and reliable operatives for special training at the Mes Ainak camp in Afghanistan; Khallad supervised the training at the camp; many of these operatives went on to participate in prominent operations: one became a suicide bomber in the Cole operation; two were later 11 September hijackers; another was a cell leader who was killed during the suicide bombings in Riyadh in May 2003; and yet another gained renown for his involvement in the bombing of the Limburg in October 2002 and for his plot to assassinate the US Ambassador to Yemen.

After the attacks on 11 September, Khallad helped prepare al-Qa'ida's defenses around Tora Bora, then fled Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban in late 2001. In early January 2002, Khallad arrived in Karachi, where he served as a communications link between al-Qa'ida's senior leadership and the network in Saudi Arabia -- particularly after the detention of al-Nashiri in late 2002 -- and assisted in the movement of operatives from South and Southeast Asia to the Arabian Peninsula. He also aided efforts by Khalid Shaykh Muhammad (KSM) to recruit Saudi hijackers for the al-Qa'ida plot to hijack airliners to attack Heathrow Airport.

In the months before his arrest, Khallad and KSM's nephew 'Ammar al-Baluchi were organizing a plot to carry out simultaneous attacks in Karachi against the US Consulate, Western travelers at the airport, and Westerners residing in the Karachi area. The plot was close to execution when he was detained.
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