Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah

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Adnan G. El Shukrijumah

Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah (Arabic: عدنان شكري جمعة) (born August 4, 1975 in Saudi Arabia) is a suspected operative of al-Qaeda. He is suspected of plotting to carry out a terrorist attack against U.S. interests abroad or domestically. When Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, former operational commander of al-Qaeda, was captured in March 2003 and interrogated, he fingered Adnan el Shukrijumah as the man who would later be in charge of a new attack. By June 2003, el Shukrijumah was listed on the FBI Seeking Information - War on Terrorism list, and he remains on the FBI list, "wanted in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States." ^[1] ^[2]

El Shukrijumah is a Saudi national but may have a passport from Guyana, Trinidad, or Canada. He is a small man at 5'3" to 5'6" and 132 pounds, and is asthmatic. El Shukrijumah also goes by nearly a dozen different aliases, among some of which are Adnan G. el Shukri Jumah, Abu Arif, Ja'far al-Tayar, Jaffar al-Tayyar, Jafar Tayar, and Jaafar al-Tayyar. It is believed he is in North America or South America.

The United States Department of State, through the Rewards for Justice Program, has offered a bounty of up to $5 million dollars for his capture.

1 Early years
- 1.1 Flight training
2 Spring 2003 worldwide alert
3 Summer 2004 terror alert
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early years

Adnan G. El Shukrijumah

From the late 1980s, when he was a young teenager, he spent fifteen years in the United States. El Shukrijumah's parents live in Florida.

Adnan G. el Shukrijumah learned some limited English later in his youth. As a young adult in 1997, he participated in an "English as a Second Language" class, during which he spoke passable but limited English. The FBI obtained a videotape of Adnan G. El Shukrijumah from the period, which shows him giving a presentation as an exercise to the class, in which he spoke at length on the subject of how to jump start a car. ^[3]

But more ominously, also after el Shukrijumah reached young adulthood in the late 1990s, U.S. authorities believe that he may have been trained at an al-Qaeda terrorist camp. The FBI believes that el Shukrijumah was trained by al-Qaeda to operate as a terrorist organizer and operational/field commander and to lead or coordinate a terrorist assault, much the same way Mohammed Atta was designated and trained as an organizer and operational/field leader by al-Qaeda to lead the September 11 hijackers in killing 3,000 by attacking The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia and leveling the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City, New York.

[edit] Flight training

El Shukrijumah received extensive flight training in the late 1990s or early 2000s at a flight school in Florida and is a pilot, though he is not registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Obviously, this is of concern to law enforcement since virtually all the al-Qaeda hijackers involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks, received training to be pilots at U.S. private flight schools, at around the same time.

[edit] Spring 2003 worldwide alert

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a worldwide alert for el Shukrijumah in the spring of 2003 shortly after the start of the March 2003 Invasion of Iraq. It was during that time that the 9/11 mastermind Khaled Shaikh Mohammed was captured in Pakistan, and then named el Shukrijumah during his interrogation. Consequently, the FBI spearheaded a massive manhunt involving various municipal, state and federal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad to locate el Shukrijumah.

El Shukrijumah was last seen in the Miami or southern Florida area in the early part of 2003. He has not been seen since and no one knows of his whereabouts.

[edit] Summer 2004 terror alert

On May 26, 2004, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that reports indicated that el Shukrijumah was one of seven al-Qaeda members who were planning terrorist actions for the summer or fall of 2004. The other alleged terrorists listed on that date were Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (who was later captured in Pakistan), Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, and Amer el-Maati, Aafia Siddiqui, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, and Abderraouf Jdey. The first two had been listed as FBI Most Wanted Terrorists since 2001, indicted for their roles in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. Jdey had already been on the FBI's "Seeking Information" wanted list since inception on January 17, 2002, to which Shukrijumah had also been later added, and the other three as well. ^[4]

On June 30, 2004, it was announced by the Honduran Security Ministry that el Shukrijumah, who had been in Honduras at some time during the previous month, had plotted to attack the Panama Canal in an attempt to hamper shipping trade and boat traffic.

The FBI does not know whether el Shukrijumah is working or traveling alone or if he is acting in concert with other al-Qaeda members as part of a terrorist cell. The FBI has stated that el Shukrijumah is likely to be armed and extremely dangerous.

Though wanted desperately for questioning by the FBI, the FBI has not specifed the nature of threats el Shukrijumah poses to the U.S. though they believe el Shukrijumah may play a large and leading role in the next set of terrorist attacks to come upon the U.S.

His parents claim that he now lives in Morocco with his wife and children. They maintain their son's innocence.