Mahfouz Ould al-Walid (Arabic: محفوظ ولد الوالد), kunya Abu Hafs al-Mauritani (Arabic: أبو حفص الموريتاني‎), is a Mauritanian Islamic scholar and poet previously associated with al-Qaeda. A veteran of the Soviet–Afghan War, he served on al-Qaeda's Shura Council and ran a religious school called the Institute of Islamic Studies in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from the late 1990s until the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.