Estimates of the volunteers number are 20,000 to 35,000. The late Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the first Arab journalist from a major Arabic media organization to cover the Afghan jihad, estimated their numbers to be at around 10,000. Within the Muslim Arab world they achieved near hero-status for their association with the defeat of the militant atheist, anti-religious Communist superpower that was the Soviet Union, and on returning home had considerable significance waging jihad against their own and other governments. Their name notwithstanding, none were Afghans and some were not Arabs, but Turkic or Malay, among others. In the West, the arguably most famous among their ranks was Osama bin Laden.