Word: hamdan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Hamdan's journey began in 1996 when he first met Nasser al-Bahri outside a mosque in Sana'a, the capital city of Yemen. At the time, al-Bahri, a well-educated Saudi and veteran holy warrior, was assembling a small army of jihadis to fight alongside Tajikistan's Islamic insurgency against its Russian-backed government. Hamdan was by all accounts an easy convert. Orphaned at a young age, he found a father figure in the confident and committed al-Bahri and a purpose in jihad...
...Bahri ultimately managed to recruit 35 men, mostly Yemenis like Hamdan, but they were stopped in Afghanistan before they could make it to Tajikistan. The ensuing days would change Hamdan's life forever. At loose ends and casting about for a cause, one of the jihadis suggested that they go see a man named Osama bin Laden. Hamdan's group arrived at bin Laden's camp in the caves of Tora Bora only days before Ramadan, Islam's holiest time of the year. For three days they listened to bin Laden preach about the religious imperative of reversing America...
Seventeen of the original 35 jihadis decided to stay. Hamdan was one of them. With only a fourth-grade education, Hamdan made himself useful as a mechanic and driver. He ultimately ended up serving bin Laden himself as a chauffeur and bodyguard, following the al-Qaeda leader when he relocated for security reasons to Tarnak Farms, a walled compound 30 minutes outside Kandahar. According to both al-Bahri and fbi interrogator Ali Soufan, Hamdan had bin Laden's trust but was not a member of his inner circle. Their accounts differ when it comes to Hamdan's level of involvement...
...days leading up to 9/11, Hamdan joined a small motorcade of al-Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who drove into the mountains to watch the hijacked planes crash into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on satellite TV. Hamdan was also at bin Laden's side--as a driver--in the weeks that followed, while the motorcade moved from one guesthouse to the next as bin Laden and al-Zawahiri readied their remaining fighters for America's imminent invasion...
...late November, with U.S. forces sweeping across Afghanistan, Hamdan returned to his home in Kandahar for his young daughter and pregnant wife and drove them toward Pakistan. What happened next is a source of dispute between Hamdan and the government. According to his defense lawyers, Hamdan figured that he would be arrested if he tried to cross the border, so he instead dropped off his family and was planning to return the car, which he had borrowed, before finding a different way into Pakistan. Soufan and government prosecutors say that Hamdan remained in Afghanistan to fight alongside al-Qaeda...