Speaking on the Saudi Channel 1 program, Homomna (Our Concerns), Al-Fifi said Saudis did not hold any key positions in Afghanistan or had any leading roles in battles, adding that this was limited to Afghans and Arabs of other nationalities.
The former Guantánamo Bay inmate said the only position given to Saudis was leading a group of 12 people, which he said was a minor role and that the Saudis that were with him in Afghanistan were young, between the ages of 20 and 25.
The 36-year-old underwent a rehabilitation program in the Kingdom on release from Guantánamo Bay, but then fled to Yemen where he joined Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He gave himself up to Saudi authorities earlier this year and announced he had repented from deviant thought.
In his interview, Al-Fifi spoke about growing up in Taif and his education. Having enrolled with the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation, Al-Fifi received a certificate after 18 months and then applied for a job as a security guard. At the age of 22, he found employment at Taif Prison and was then transferred to work in prisons in Jeddah.
“I moved to Jeddah because I wanted to join the Al-Ahli club. I used to play football for the prison team in Taif. My friend recommended I move to work in Jeddah so I could be closer to the club which I could join and continue working. However, when I moved to Jeddah, I found out that the period to register new players was over,” he said.
“I’d rented a small place along with a friend and then we began missing work because we were getting up late. We received many warnings and salary deductions, and were then discharged from work,” he said.
Al-Fifi returned to Taif and to his family who were disappointed that he had lost his job. He then decided to look for other type of work but couldn’t find anything. He even tried reapplying at Taif Prison but was rejected. He says he remained unemployed for four years.
“I started to go out with my friends every day to escape from the daily pressure of finding a job. I later left my wild life and became conservative. As much as my family was happy that I had distanced myself from my wild life, they were annoyed at my strictness. I started to annoy all my brothers and sisters to the level that I stopped them from watching television. I started to listen to tapes about jihad and then felt like joining a jihad group,” he said.
Al-Fifi was lured to join a jihad group after regularly meeting a group of men for nine months. They invited him to their apartment and showed him tapes of militants in Chechnya. One of his friends then arranged for him to leave the Kingdom and go to Afghanistan traveling via Qatar and Pakistan. His family did not know about his intentions as they thought he had gone to the Eastern Province to find a job.
Al-Fifi said he had no idea about Al-Qaeda at first. All that he wanted to do was take training in firearms and then join the Taleban or go to Chechnya. He then stayed in Afghanistan for nine months until 9/11 after which the US invaded Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda began to emerge.
“We were moved to an area in the north to form a line to fight the Northern Alliance and to stop the Americans from invading Afghanistan from the north. I stayed for one month until the bombing of Kabul began. We retreated to Tora Bora and then to Jalalabad. We did not see what happened on 9/11 but we heard about it. We heard that China was responsible and then we heard some Jihadi group was responsible. The Americans and the Northern Alliance were closing down on us and soon Jalalabad fell into their hands and we had to retreat to Tora Bora,” he added.
After Ramadan, he and around 300 fighters, the majority of them Saudis, walked for four days toward the Pakistani border. He said that they were all scared and exhausted, and gave themselves up to local tribes who promised to hand them over to their respective governments. They were instead sold to the Americans and then later transferred to Guantánamo.
This was Al-Fifi’s second appearance on television following an earlier appearance on Nov. 29.
