Al-Khifa

al-Khifa, or the al-Khifa Refugee Center, was the U.S. branch of the Services Office run by Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden.

According to the 9-11 Commission, "al-Kifah recruited American Muslims to fight in Afghanistan; some of them would participate in terrorist actions in the United States in the early 1990s and in al-Qaeda operations elsewhere, including the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa." They cited a flyer that read: "al-Kifah Refugee Center is an organization founded by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam to serve the cause of jihad."

al-Khifa published a bimonthly newspaper, The Sword (al-Hussam),which had an Arabic subtitle "Maktab al-Kidmat," or MAK, the Arabic name for the Services Office

Personnel
One of the staff of al-Khifa was Ali Mohammed.

Successor
Following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Care International charity, took over the operations of al-Khifa. not to be confused with the non-governmental organization CARE International and CARE USA organization, which were founded in 1945. In 2008, Emadeddin Muntasser, Samir Almonla, and Muhammad Mubayid were convicted of conspiring to defraud and conceal information from the U.S. government. Specifically, they had created a charity called Care International -- "to solicit and obtain tax deductible donations for the purpose of supporting and promoting the mujahedin(Muslim holy warriors) and jihad (violent armed conflict)." The concealment was that the charity, like al-Kifa, was involved non-charitable activities such as the solicitation and expenditure of funds to support violent jihad.

In April 13, 1993, Muntasser incorporated the new organization as Care International, Inc. Care took over publishing al-Hussam in June 1993, with a nearly identical header that read "al-Hussam; Newsletter published by Maktab al-Kidmat, Boston USA; Care International." Care filed its articles of incorporation using the same Boston address used by al-Kifah in earlier editions of al-Hussam.