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. Some time in late 2000 or early 2001, bin Laden was videotaped reciting al-Walid's poem "Thoughts Over al-Aqsa Intifadah". The publisher of the magazine Al-Talib ( The Student), al-Walid wrote poetry that attracted the attention of Osama bin Laden, and was invited to give spiritual lectures to mujahideen at Afghan training camps. He was released after renouncing his ties to al-Qaeda and condemning the September 11 attacks. At that time, Iran extradited him to Mauritania, where he was held in prison until his release on July 7, 2012. Īl-Walid fled from Afghanistan to Iran after the American invasion and was held there under house arrest from 2003 until April 2012. : 18 Under interrogation, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that al-Walid had opposed any large-scale attack against the United States and wrote bin Laden a stern letter warning against any such action, quoting the Quran. Īlong with Abu Walid al Masri, Saeed al-Masri and Saif al-Adel, al-Walid opposed the September 11 attacks two months prior to their execution. A veteran of the Soviet–Afghan War, he served on al-Qaeda's Shura Council and ran a religious school called the Institute of Islamic Studies in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from the late 1990s until the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Mahfouz Ould al-Walid ( Arabic: محفوظ ولد الوالد), kunya Abu Hafs al-Mauritani ( Arabic: أبو حفص الموريتاني), is a Mauritanian Islamic scholar and poet previously associated with al-Qaeda. Islamic scholar and poet affiliated with al-Qaeda until the Septemattacks.