Khalid Mustafa Khalifa al-Aruri was born on July 25, 1967 in Ramallah on the West Bank and is a Jordanian citizen. He is also known by his aliases Abu al-Qassam, Abu Ashraf and Abu Jabal. Al-Aruri is married Alia to a sister of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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Jihadi credentials
Khalid al-Aruri grew up in Zarqa with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and both men traveled al-Zarqawi to Afghanistan in 1989 and stayed there until 1993. From 1993 until 1999 both men were in a Jordanian prison, where al-Zarqawi founded his Bayt al-Imam organization. After their release the two traveled again to Afghanistan where Al-Aruri become the commander of Al-Zarqawi's jihadi training camp near Herat.
After Zarqawi and his men left Afghanistan in 2001 al-Aruri was one of Zarqawi's trusted inner circle advisors and became one the key liaisons for with Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq. Al-Aruri operated as al-Zarqawi's quartermaster and was in charge of training camps in Northern Iraq.
On February 5, 2003 Al-Aruri as Abu Ashraf was mentioned in the speech of Secretary of State Colin Powell to the U.N. Security Council. As Abu Ashraf he was shown on a partial organization chart which was linked to four cells operating in Europe. Cited were a “UK poison cell” a “Spain cell” a “French poison cell”, and a “possible Italy cell.” Former Director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy and CIA veteran Rolf Mowatt-Larsen stated that "Secretary Powell’s information used for this part of speech proved to be accurate in the course of events."
The relation between al-Qa'ida topleader Sayf al-Adl and Khalid al-Aruri goes back to 1999 when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had meetings with the al-Qa'ida leadership in Kandahar before opening his training camp near Herat. According to al-Adl, al-Zarqawi "used to travel with Khalid al-Aruri and Sulayman Darwish Abu-al-Ghadiyah."
Arrest in Iran
Al-Aruri moved to Iran and was one of al-Zarqawi's main facilitators there. In a Moroccan investigation into the March 2003 Casablanca bombings Al-Aruri surfaced as a financier of the attacks as he had sent U.S. $70,000 to the Moroccan Aziz Hummani. Al-Aruri was involved in a WMD smuggle ring just before he got arrested in Iran, just before he was going to cross the border with Turkey.
Release by Iran
In March 2015 Khalid al-Aruri was released by Iran together with other high level al-Qa'ida leaders including Sayf al-Adl, Abu Khayr al-Masri and Abu Mohammed al-Masri.
According to Jihadi messages on social media Khalid al-Aruri has traveled to Syria since his release and is reorganising Jabhat al-Nusra.