Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adnan G. El Shukrijumah
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. A material witness warrant for el Shukrijumah was issued on the 26th of that month[1]. In June of 2003, he appeared on the FBI Seeking Information - War on Terrorism list[2], and since then United States Department of State, through the Rewards for Justice Program, has offered a bounty of up to US$5 million for information about his location[1][3].

El Shukrijumah is known to have a Guyanese passport but might also use a Saudi, Canadian, or Trinidadian passport[1]. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied that el Shukrijumah is a Saudi citizen [4]. He is a small man at 5'3" to 5'6" and 132 pounds, and is asthmatic. He goes by nearly a dozen aliases, counting alternative spellings, such as Adnan G. el Shukri Jumah, Abu Arif, Ja'far al-Tayar, Jaffar al-Tayyar, Jafar Tayar, and Jaafar al-Tayyar. (Al-Tayyar means the pilot.)

Contents

[edit] Early years

Adnan G. El Shukrijumah
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 mother lives in Florida. His father, a radical imam and former missionary for Saudi Arabia, died recently[citation needed].

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.[5]

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] Nuclear Terrorism

In June 2007 Fox News claimed El-Shukrijumah was Al Qaeda's operations leader on a nuclear terror plot targeting the United States. El-Shukrijumah is "reportedly the man Usama bin Laden tapped to lead a previous plot to detonate nuclear bombs simultaneously in several U.S. cities." On 25 May 2006, the Canada Free Press published an interview of Hamid Mir, a researcher who claimed to have interviewed numerous Al-Qaeda operatives as well as Taliban fighters. According to Mir, a Al-Qaeda team led by El-Shukrijumah smuggled three "suitcase nukes", tactical-scale nuclear weapons into Europe and/or the U.S. before the 9/11 attacks.[1] It is widely believed however, that although Al-Qaeda may have created a team to develop nuclear terror plots targeting American Cities, that the organization has to date been unable to acquire the key materials necessary to carry out such attacks.

[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. Rumors have circulated that authorities have also heard from eyewitnesses that he was seen in Northern Maine near the Canadian Border, and Honduras.

[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. [6]

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.

[edit] Identified by Abu Zubaydah

A Summary of the High Value Terrorist Detainee Program, from the office of the Director of National Intelligence, asserted that Jafar al-Tayyar was identified as el Shukrijumah by Abu Zubaydah.[7]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c US reward offer for information on el Shukrijumah
  2. ^ FBI Seeking Information, War on Terrorism list archive, Internet Archive Wayback Machine, June 3, 2003
  3. ^ FBI Seeking Information Alert for el Shukrijumah
  4. ^ Riyadh denies that el Shukrijumah is a Saudi
  5. ^ Transcript of Adnan G. El Shukrijumah's Video, FBI, 1997, view video with Real Player, view mpg video with Windows Media Player
  6. ^ Transcript: Ashcroft, Mueller news conference, CNN.com, Wednesday, May 26, 2004 Posted: 8:19 PM EDT (0019 GMT)
  7. ^ Summary of the High Value Terrorist Detainee Program. Director of National Intelligence. Retrieved on April 29, 2007.

[edit] External links