Ahmed Khadr

Ahmed Saïd Khadr (Arabic: أحمد سعيد خضر; March 1, 1948 – October 2, 2003) was an Egyptian-Canadian philanthropist with alleged ties to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His activity in Afghanistan began in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and he has been described as having had ties to a number of militants within the Afghan mujahideen, including Saudi militant Osama bin Laden. Khadr was accused by Canada and the United States of being a "senior associate" and financier of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

During this period, Khadr worked with a number of charitable non-governmental organizations that served Afghan refugees and set up agricultural projects. He set up two orphanages for children whose parents had been killed over the course of the decade-long Soviet–Afghan War. He funded the construction of Makkah Mukarama Hospital in Afghanistan with his own savings, as well as seven medical clinics in the Afghan refugee camps of Pakistan.

Due to his prominent regional role, Khadr helped negotiate compromises among rival Afghan warlords, power brokers, and leaders in order to establish peace in the region. The Canadian government had considered him to be the locally highest-ranking member of al-Qaeda. In 1999, the United Kingdom added Khadr's name to a list of al-Qaeda members compiled with the United Nations.

Shortly after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, two of Khadr's sons were captured separately by American troops in 2002. They were later detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Aged 15 at the time of his capture, Omar Khadr was among the youngest detainees at the camp, and the last citizen of a Western country (Canada) to be held there. Omar accepted a plea deal (which he later recanted) and pleaded guilty to charges of war crimes in October 2010; he was repatriated to Canada in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released on bail in 2015.

On October 2, 2003, Khadr was killed by Pakistani security forces during a gunfight with al-Qaeda and Taliban militants near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. Following his death, his family members moved back to Canada, where they remain today.