In July
2002, a
Special Forces unit in southeast
Afghanistan received intelligence that a group of Al Qaeda fighters was operating out of a mud-brick compound in
Ab Khail, a small hill town near the
Pakistani border.
When the soldiers arrived at the compound, they looked through a crack in the door and saw five men armed with assault rifles sitting inside. The soldiers called for the men to surrender. The men refused.
They walked into the ruins. They had not gotten far when a wounded fighter, concealed behind a broken wall, threw a grenade, killing Special Forces Sgt.
Christopher Speer. The soldiers immediately shot the fighter three times in the chest, and he collapsed.
When the soldiers got close, they saw that he was just a boy.
Fifteen years old and slightly built, he could have passed for thirteen. He was bleeding heavily from his wounds, but he was -- unbelievably -- alive. The soldiers stood over him.
His name was
Omar Khadr.
Born into a fundamentalist Muslim family in
Toronto, he had been prepared for jihad since he was a small boy. His parents, who were
Egyptian and
Palestinian, had raised him to believe that religious martyrdom was the highest achievement he could aspire to
.
In the Khadr family, suicide bombers were spoken of with great respect. According to
U.S intelligence,
Omar's father used charities as front groups to raise and launder money for Al Qaeda.
Omar's formal military training -- bombmaking, assault-rifle marksmanship, combat tactics -- before he turned twelve.
For nearly a year before the Ab Khail siege, according to the
U.S. government, Omar and his father and brothers had fought with the Taliban against
American and
Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan. Before that, they had been living in
Jalalabad, with
Osama bin Laden. Omar spent much of his adolescence in Al Qaeda compounds.
CBC
Broadcaster: CBC
- published: 04 May 2012
- views: 4156