Abu Walid al Masri

Mustafa Hamid (Arabic: مصطفى حامد, born 1945 in Minya al-Qamh, Sharqia Governorate, Egypt), also known as Abu Walid al Masri (أبو وليد المصري) and Hashim al-Makki (هاشم المكّي), is a journalist who in the 1980s fought as an Islamic jihad volunteer during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He is reported to have been an al-Qaeda advisor and taught at the Al Farouq training camp in the 1990s. He served as a bureau chief in Afghanistan for al-Jazeera from 1998-2001, before leaving for Iran.

There he was arrested and placed under house arrest for nearly a decade. In 2011 he was released, and returned to Egypt after its revolution.

Mustafa Hamid was born in 1945 in Minya al-Qamh, Sharqia Governorate, Egypt. He became a journalist.

While living in Kabul, Afghanistan, Mustafa Hamid married Rabiah Hutchinson, an Australian convert a. In Kabul, Hutchinson was regarded for her medical knowledge.

After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, at the age of nearly 40, he went there to fight as an Islamic jihad volunteer, along with many other men from the Mideast, who became known as the "Afghan Arabs." During the 1980s, the United States provided some support to the mujahideen resistance to the Soviet Union, primarily through the CIA. Hamid became known by his kunya as Abu Walid al Masri.

During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, al Masri also worked as a journalist for the Arabic-language Al Ettihad news. He reportedly taught as a senior advisor at the Al Farouq training camp for a time in the mid 1990s. This was during the period when ethnic groups and warlords competed for power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. By 1996, the Taliban emerged in control of much of the country. Al-Masri has been described as a leader or advisor to al-Qaeda, based in Afghanistan by then and associated with the Farouq camp, although he has disclaimed this.

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