Wa’el Jelaidan

Wael Hamza Jalaidan

One of the people who founded al-Qaeda in August 1988

He had previously (1984) established "the Service Office" or Maktab al-Khidamat in Afghanistan, along with bin Laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.

He was the president of the Tucson Islamic Center from 1984 to 1985. An associate of his at the Islamic Center, Wadih El-Hage, was later convicted in the 1998 conspiracy to bomb American embassies in Africa.

In 1986 he left Tucson to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

While in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, Jalaidan headed the Saudi Red Crescent Society and the Muslim World League. He left Afghanistan in 1992 and moved to Saudi Arabia, and later to Bosnia, where he supervised the Saudi Aid Committee for a short time.

Jalaidan was the Secretary-General of Rabita Trust, a now-defunct Pakistan-based charity which had its assets seized by the United States and Saudi Arabia for knowingly funding terrorist organisations.

Jelaidan’s assets were frozen in September 2002 after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia branded him as a “person who supports terror.” -- RABITA TRUST:

A financial arm of the Saudi-sponsored Muslim World League, Rabita Trust is a now-defunct Pakistan-based charity whose professed purpose was to give aid to Afghani refugees in Pakistan. Its additional objectives were to disseminate Islamic culture, explain the teachings of Islam, and "defend" Islam "in a manner that safeguards the interests and aspirations of Muslims, ... refutes false allegations against Islam, and repels inimical trends and dogma which the enemies of Islam seek to exploit in order to destroy the unity of Muslims and to sow seeds of doubt in the Muslim brethren."

Rabita Trust was established in 1988 by the late Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq and the Muslim World League's former Secretary-General Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef. Rabita Trust was scrutinized by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee based on evidence that it knowingly funded terrorist groups. The organization was directed by Wael Hamza Jalaidan, an al Qaeda founder and chief of logistics, until the United States and Saudi Arabia moved to close it down with Pakistani assistance. Because Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally, was a member of Rabita Trust's Board of Directors, the U.S. initially resisted adding the group to its list of terrorist-sponsoring charities. But under U.S. pressure, Musharraf eventually resigned from the Board, at which point the United States designated Rabita Trust as a "Global Terrorist Entity" and froze its assets on October 12, 2001.