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Mar. 4, 2004

Khadr: `We are an Al Qaeda family'

Canadians tell of ties to bin Laden

`I see him as a very peaceful man'

MICHELLE SHEPHARD
STAFF REPORTER

Abdurahman Khadr worked for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to identify Al Qaeda members at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina, CBC Television said last night.

The revelation, in a promo for tonight's instalment of a CBC documentary on the Khadr family, confirms a Dec. 31 report in the Star that said Abdurahman was released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo in return for leading U.S. intelligence forces to his father and associates.

Last night's instalment offered this portrait of the Khadrs:

They were an Al Qaeda family whose children were born in Canada but grew up in training camps in Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden was counted as a close personal friend.

Dying for a cause is the most direct route to heaven and, according to at least one family member, the Sept. 11 attacks gave the Americans what "they deserve."

These were the frank statements made by the relatives of Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr in last night's documentary.

They are the latest revelations of a former Scarborough family, who moved to Pakistan to apparently do charity work, and the first direct admission that Khadr, his wife, daughter and four sons supported Al Qaeda.

"(My father) respected (bin Laden) for a person who is standing up for something he believes in, who's willing to sacrifice for it, who's doing a lot of good for people who are helping him," Khadr's daughter Zaynab told the CBC.

CBC producer Nazim Baksh and reporter Terence McKenna spent two months interviewing the family members here and abroad......(snipped, long article)

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1078355412024&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
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Pic of one of the "proud" al qaeda members at the link

Another snippet from the above article:

He describes a scene where his family was watching video footage after the September, 2001 attacks: "When I saw the video, I was looking at it you know and everyone was smiling and laughing and I was just looking at it. I saw this person jumping out of the building and I didn't think it was funny ... what was going through that person's mind," he said.

"My father said, `What's your problem?' and I said `I don't know. I don't think this is right and it's going to cause a lot of trouble ... you hit so much people who were in that building.'"

Abdurahman said his father responded: "Well they pay taxes and the taxes get guns and guns kill Muslims. We're hitting (the) American economy and there is collateral damage."