Zahid Al-Sheikh is an elder brother of alleged 9/11 mastermind
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. He volunteered to travel to
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
to help fight to resist the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
.
Following the ouster of the Soviet forces Zahid is reported to have played a role in
planning terrorist projects.
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He is also reported to have shifted careers to the direction of
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...
s that provided aid to refugees.
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Zahid and two of his brothers traveled to Afghanistan in the mid-1980s. His two brothers are believed to have been killed in combat. His youngest brother,
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-re ...
, who was later to play a senior role in
al Qaeda's leadership arrived in 1987.
Zahid is reported to have introduced his younger brother to leading anti-Soviet fighters.
According to the
9-11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", includin ...
:
The USA sought Zahid for questioning about whether he played a role in the
1993 World Trade Center bombing.
[
Zahid is reported to have collaborated with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in planning ]Operation Bojinka
The Bojinka plot ( ar, بوجينكا; tl, Oplan Bojinka) was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners ...
, a 1995 plan to
hijack 12 airplanes over the Pacific.[
]
On September 26, 2001, shortly after al Qaeda's attacks 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' published a report on their investigation as to whether there was evidence of a real link between Osama bin Laden and Mercy International, the charity Zahid helped run.[ They reported they could find no evidence of a link, but called for a more detailed investigation—to reassure the public.
American ]intelligence analysts
Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of deliberate ...
alleged, during Adel Hassan Hamad's Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were estab ...
and Administrative Review Board
The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the detainees held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The purpose of the Board is to re ...
hearing that Zahid was tied to terrorism and that Hamad's acquaintanceship with him was one of the factors in favor of his continued detention.Lajnat Al-Da'wa al Islamia Lajnat Al-Da'wa al Islamia ''(LDI, also known as the “Islamic Call Committee”)'' is a Muslim non-governmental organization based in Kuwait. It says that it is a humanitarian aid organization. It has provided aid in Afghanistan and other areas of ...
(LDI) in Pakistan.
Hamad confirmed that Zahid had been a director of LDI when he first worked as a teacher for the Hira Islamic Institute in the Jelazee Refugee Center, which was supported by LDI, but he told his hearing that Zahid was never the director of the camp.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheikh, Zahid
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Pakistani people of Arab descent