Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, Al-Qaeda Mufti, Bin Laden’s heir

Abdel-Hady Rabie

Despite breaking away from Al-Qaeda and announcing his repentance, Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, also known as Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, former al-Qaeda Mufti, is still arousing controversy through his successive statements.

Mahfouz was born in 1975 in Mauritania and studied Sharia; he traveled to Afghanistan during the beginning of the Afghani war against the Soviet Union where he met with Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

He was invited by Bin Laden to give spiritual lectures to mujahideen at Afghan training camps and then appointed him as the group’s Mufti and the third leader after Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.

In 1990, Mahfouz became head of a religious school called the Institute of Islamic Studies in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He remained in these positions until the U.S. invasion in 2001.

It was later suggested that he had traveled to Iraq in early 1998 in an attempt to meet with Saddam Hussein, but was turned away as the leader did not want to create problems for his country.
In 1998, the United States learned that Mahfouz was staying in Room 13 at the Dana Hotel in Khartoum, and sought to have him killed or preferably arrested for interrogation. When a plan was finally made to capture him using another country's officials, he had already left Sudan.

In 1998, Germany began monitoring Mohamedou Ould Slahi's accounts, and it was noticed that al-Walid had asked him to wire him huge amounts of money, managing to send him a DM8,000 transfer in December and one other situation in which he sent him money.

Al-Walid fled from Afghanistan to Iran after the American invasion and was held there under house arrest from 2003 until April 2012 as he refused to cooperate with security authorities or give any information about Al-Qaeda or its leaders.

The former senior Qaeda adviser was released from a prison in Mauritania in July 2012 after he declared leaving Al-Qaeda. But despite breaking from the terrorist organization, Zawahri still commends him.

After his release in 2014, al-Mauritani criticized Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s declaration that he is the leader of the new Islamic caliphate, affirming that this caliphate is based on corrupted foundations.

He was condemned by Daesh, which also published an article entitled “Did Ould al-Walid retreated, or did Al-Qaeda get infiltrated” by Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman.

It is mentioned that one percent of the $29 million that Bin Laden apportioned for Jihad was offered to Ould al-Walid.