A biography of the patriarch of the Khadr family posted on an al-Qaeda website praises him as a fighter for the poor who disliked living among the luxuries of Canada.

Ahmed Said Khadr is one of dozens of people profiled in the "Book of 120 Martyrs in Afghanistan." It is posted online at the Al-Fajr media centre, al-Qaeda's online news service.

Ahmed Said Khadr is believed to have been a friend of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
(CBC)

The biographer says Egyptian-born Ahmed Said Khadr reluctantly came to Canada after breezing through a Cairo university and emerging with a computer engineering degree.

After living unhappily in Canada — which the writer calls "a dirty swamp" — for 10 years, Khadr returned to Pakistan during the mid-1980s. While there, he worked for a Canadian government-backed charity called Human Concern International, says the account.

Khadr later formed his own charity, returning to Canada from time to time to collect money for the Afghan jihad against the Soviets.

In 1992 he stepped on a landmine, paralyzing a hand and a foot, and returned to Canada for one year for medical care and to recuperate.

His biographer says he found the luxury of Canada not to his liking. He returned to Pakistan, becoming an al-Qaeda commander in Logar province when U.S.-led coalition forces invaded Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, says the biography.

Khadr was shot and killed by Pakistani troops in 2003 during a firefight in the mountains of Pakistan. His biographer says he refused to surrender, choosing death and immediate entry into paradise instead.

Khadr's son, Omar Khadr, is also praised in the biography. Omar Khadr is currently on trial at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for allegedly killing an American soldier with a grenade in 2002.

The biography praises Ahmed Said Khadr for "tossing his little child in the furnace of the battle." Omar, says the biography, is an injured lion cub who hasn't let despair overwhelm him despite being arrested and imprisoned.