Early Life
Abdurahman Khadr was born in Manama, Bahrain, the son of Ahmed Khadr, an Egyptian immigrant to Canada. His father visited Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the early 1980s, and brought his family to Pakistan in 1985.
In his youth, Khadr was known as the "problem child" in the family, frequently running away and getting in trouble, refusing to follow any rules, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. In 1994, he was sent to Khalden training camp along with his brother Abdullah, where he was given the alias Osama. The two brothers fought constantly at the camp, one day their argument became so heated that Abdullah pointed his AK-47 and Abdurahman his PPK handgun, at each other screaming, before a trainer stepped between them. In 1997, a dispute between the brothers was mediated by Abu Laith al-Libi, who earned their confidence and respect telling them about Dubai and Ferraris, later described as "really cool" by Abdurahman.
While the family was living in Nazim Jihad with Osama bin Laden's family in 1998, Abdurahman became close friends with Abdulrahman bin Laden who was close to his age, and the only child in the group to have his own horse, although Abdurahman successfully petitioned his own father to buy him a horse. Once, when the two horses fought, bin Laden pointed a gun at Khadr, yelling at him to stop the fight before his prized Arabian horse was killed. When the family was leaving the compound, Abdurahman and Abdullah fought over seating in the car, and the fight ended with the older Khadr chasing his brother around the car with an AK-47 screaming. Their mother ended up asking bin Laden if he could please take care of the troublesome Abdurahman since "she could not control him", and he begrudgingly agreed to look after the youth until their father returned. However, the next day bin Laden informed Abdurahman that it would not work, and he asked Saif al-Adel to take the 16-year old to the bus station so he could catch up with his family en route back to Peshawar.
The following year, Abdurahman says he was sent to Jihad Wel al-Farouq for seven days. On August 20, 1998, Al Farouq training camp was bombed by American cruise missiles and Amr Hamed was killed, which made Abdurahman first feel hatred for Americans.
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