Adnan Shukrijumah. Does the name ring a bell? It should if you have been a regular reader of this blog since its inception in 2004.
In August 2004, I reported on the FBI search for the high-profile fugitive and al Qaeda operative billed as the “next Mohammed Atta.” There’s been a $5 million bounty on his head for six years. He has been reportedly spotted at or near the Mexican border and allegedly has met with Latin American gangs. In 2007, his name came up in wiretaps related to the busted NYC/JFK bombing plot.
Well, he’s still on the loose. And he’s still apparently hard at work on global jihad.
Adnan G. El Shukrijumah may have met with one of the men involved in the failed al Qaeda plot to blow up the New York City subway. Press reports do not indicate who Shukrijumah met with, but the plot’s leader was a Colorado man named Najibullah Zazi.
Adnan Shukrijumah is a wanted al Qaeda terrorist who was at one time suspected of planning a dirty bomb attack against the US. Shukrijumah was born in Saudi Arabia but raised in the US. At one time alerts were issued that he might try and cross into the US through Mexico. There is a $5 million reward for information on his whereabouts from the FBI.
Zazi may have met Shukrijumah in an al Qaeda camp in 2008. The Washington Post claims that Shukrijumah “is among the top candidates to be al-Qaida’s next head of external operations”.
This would make sense given that the plot to blow up the subway is said to have been ordered by Saleh al-Somali, al Qaeda’s former head of external operations, since killed in a Predator strike (Allahu-akbar!). Zazi originally went to Pakistan to join the Taliban, but was recruited by al-Somali to join al Qaeda instead.
If Zazi met with Shukrijumah, then it would have been in Waziristan. Meaning the the al Qaeda operative was in Pakistan in 2008, and not in Central America as some have speculated.
They don’t rest. Neither should we.