Wa'el Hamza Julaidan

Who is Wa'el Hamza Julaidan?

Wa'el Hamza Julaidan is one of the people who founded al-Qaeda in August 1988.

He had previously established "the Service Office" or Maktab al-Khidamat in Afghanistan, along with bin Laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Many of the supporters of al-Qaeda were trained in the Arab military camps this trio set up in support of the mujahideen resistance movement against the Soviet occupation.

He was the president of the Tucson Islamic Center from 1984 to 1985. In 1986 he left Tucson to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1987, he traveled to Hijaz, and was expected to return to Karachi.

For his role in al-Qaeda, Julaidan is under worldwide embargo by the United Nations.