Al-Qaida's Foreign Fighters Shift Focus from Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated Arabic-language biographies of foreign fighters—particularly those from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—which appear to document a shift in focus away from the jihad in Iraq and towards the growing conflict in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The biographies include the story of “Abu Ubaidah al-Najdi”, a 25-year old Saudi medical student who spent six months fighting in northern Iraq before leaving and “heading for Afghanistan”—and the video-recorded "martyrdom" will of "Abu Ghareeb al-Makki" (a.k.a. Kamaal al-Hadhli"), the Saudi Al-Qaida suicide bomber responsible for the June 2008 suicide bombing attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. One of the other men profiled in the documents, Saudi national Sari Bin Hamad al-Sari (a.k.a. Ikrama al-Najdi)—who died in a failed Taliban assault on the Khost regional airport in Afghanistan—was reputed to have been a close friend and associate of Abu Ghareeb al-Makki. The biographies now available on the NEFA website include:

- "Death of Kuwaiti Faisal al-Dosari in Afghanistan"
- "Supervisor of Al-Firdaws Forum Joins Jihad in Afghanistan"
- "Six Saudi Heroes Killed in Afghanistan"
- "Martyrdom of Saudi Bin Hamad al-Sari in Afghanistan"

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