Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah | |
|---|---|
| عدنان شكري جمعة | |
 Adnan Shukrijumah in 2001 | |
| Born | Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah (1975-08-04)4 August 1975 |
| Died | 6 December 2014(2014-12-06) (aged 39) |
| Cause of death | Killed by Pakistan ArmySpecial Services Group as part of theOperation Zarb-e-Azb |
| Alma mater | Broward Community College[citation needed] South Florida University[1] |
| Occupations | Computer engineer[1] Computer technician Al-Qaeda Terrorist |
Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah (Arabic:عدنان شكري جمعة,ʿAdnān Shukrī Jumaʿah) (4 August 1975 – 6 December 2014) was a citizen ofGuyana andSaudi Arabia and a senior member ofAl-Qaeda. He was born in Saudi Arabia and grew up in the United States.[2][3]
In March 2003, a provisionalarrest warrant was issued calling him a "material witness", and he was subsequently listed by the U.S.Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on theSeeking Information - War on Terrorism list,[4] and theUnited States Department of State, through theRewards for Justice Program, offered a bounty of up to US$5 million for information about his location.[3][5]
Last known to have lived with his family inMiramar, Florida,[6] Shukrijumah was known to have aGuyanese passport but might also have used a Saudi,Canadian, orTrinidadian passport.[2][3] Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied that el Shukrijumah was a Saudi citizen.[7] He was considered to be a high-ranking member ofal-Qaeda.[8]
His mother insisted that herasthmatic son had been wrongly accused.[9][10][11] He also went by the namesAbu Arif, andJafar al-Tayyar, the latter translating to "Jafar the Pilot".[11]
In 2014, Shukrijumah was killed in a militarymanhunt operation byPakistan Army Special Forces inSouth Waziristan.[12][13] ThePakistani Taliban confirmed Shukrijumah's death two days later.[14] Al-Qaeda confirmed Shukrijumah's death in July 2016.[15]
Shukriumah moved to the United States in the 1980s as a young teenager with his parents. His mother Zuhrah Abdu Ahmed still resides in Florida, while his father died following a career as animam.[11] In 2001, his father had attracted the interest of officials, as the Saudi embassy had sent him $19,200.[16]
Shukrijumah learned English later in his youth. As a young adult in 1997, he attended "English as a Second Language" classes. The FBI obtained a videotape of Adnan G. El Shukrijumah from the period that shows him giving a presentation exercise to the class, in which he speaks at length on the subject of jump starting a car.[17] U.S. authorities believe that he may have been trained at anAfghan training camp in the late 1990s. He is alleged to have received assistance from American neuroscientistAafia Siddiqui.[6] Shukrijumah enrolled atBroward Community College, and earned money on the side working as a freelance computer technician.[11] Shukrijumah applied for agreen card so as to have hispermanent residence status in the United States recognized, but lied on his application about having ever been arrested in the past.[11]
In March 2001, while investigatingImran Mandhai, who attended the same Florida mosque as Shukrijumah, authorities made a note that Mandhai had eyed Shukrijumah as a potential colleague in whom to confide his plans, although Shukrijumah had refused to associate with the militant Mandhai. Reports would later accuse Mandhai of plotting to destroyMount Rushmore.[11][18][19][20]
Shukrijumah left the United States in May 2001 and flew toTrinidad after receiving his degree in computer engineering.[11][21] However Mandhai's testimony in court would indicate that he believed he had last seen Shukrijumah two months after his stated departure.[11] Authorities tried to speak with Shukrijumah, appearing unannounced at his parents' home six times asking if he was available - only to be told that he had left the country.[11]
Under torture,Jose Padilla claims to have been partnered with Shukrijumah in the summer of 2001, and that the pair were taught how to sealnatural gas into apartment complexes and detonate explosives in a course they received at theKandahar airport. Padilla claims that the two men constantly fought, and he eventually went toMohammed Atef to complain that he could not work with Shukrijumah and the training was canceled.[22]
In late 2002, Shukrijumah phoned his parents to tell them that he had found a wife, settled down and had a son, and was now teaching English in Morocco.
In March 2003, his family's Florida home was the subject of an FBI search which yielded no evidence of his location.[6] A bulletin was released suggesting that he was wanted as a terrorist and posed a "grave danger" to "gas stations, fuel trucks, subway systems, trains, or bridges".[11] A number of "sightings" were reported across the country - including at a sandwich shop in southTampa.[11]
In September 2003, the FBI issued an alert for four people they alleged "pose a threat to U.S. citizens", includingAbderraouf Jdey, Shukrijumah and the previously unknownZubayr al-Rimi andKarim el-Mejjati.[23]
Mr. Williams' allegations about McMaster [are] on a par withUFO reports and JFK conspiracy theories...the notion that because there are people on the faculty from Egypt that McMaster is then a haven for terrorism is not only logically offensive, it smacks of racism.
— Lawyer Peter Downard[24]
In October, authorPaul Williams wrote a book titledDunces of Doomsday in which he claimed thatAmer el-Maati,Jaber A. Elbaneh andAnas al-Liby had all been seen aroundHamilton, Ontario the previous year, and that Shukrijumah had been seen atMcMaster University where he "wasted no time in gaining access to thenuclear reactor and stealing more than 180 lb (82 kg) of nuclear material for the creation of radiological bombs". He was subsequently sued by the university forlibel, as there had been no evidence to suggest any part of his story was true. The publisher later apologised for allowing Williams to print statements which "were without basis in fact".[24]
On 26 May 2004,United States Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft andFBI DirectorRobert 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 wereAhmed Khalfan Ghailani (who was later captured in Pakistan),Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, andAmer el-Maati,Aafia Siddiqui,Adam Yahiye Gadahn, andAbderraouf Jdey. The first two had been listed asFBI Most Wanted Terrorists since 2001, indicted for their roles in the1998 U.S. embassy bombings. Jdey had already been on the FBI's "Seeking Information" wanted list since inception on 17 January 2002, to which Shukrijumah had also been later added, and the other three as well.[25] AmericanDemocrats labeled the warning "suspicious" and said it was held solely to divert attention from President Bush's plummeting poll numbers and to push the failings of theInvasion of Iraq off the front page.[24]CSIS directorReid Morden voiced similar concerns, saying it seemed more like "election year" politics, than an actual threat - andThe New York Times pointed out that one day before the announcement, they had been told by theDepartment of Homeland Security that there were no current risks.[24]
Ashcroft alleged that Shukrijumah had specifically "scouted sites" inNew York City and around thePanama Canal for possible terrorist attacks.[2] On 30 June, it was announced by the Honduran Security Ministry that el Shukrijumah had been inHonduras during the previous month meeting with members of theMara Salvatruchastreet gang.[2] That September, theAviation Security Association claimed that a Japaneseflight attendant had confronted Shukrijumah while he had been acting strangely atKansai International Airport.[2] In June 2007, the New York Post claimed that Shukrijumah was "Al Qaeda's operations leader on a nuclear terror plot targeting the United States" stating thatOsama bin Laden had chosen him "to detonate nuclear bombs simultaneously in several U.S. cities."[26]
A 2006Summary of the High Value Terrorist Detainee Program, from the office of theDirector of National Intelligence, asserted thatJafar al-Tayyar was identified as el Shukrijumah bywaterboarded captiveAbu Zubaydah.[27]Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, after also being waterboarded, was shown a photograph of Shukijumah and agreed it wasJafar al-Tayyar.[11] Other captives held atGuantanamo Bay detention camp had stated that another man, whose photograph they identified from a collection, wasJafar al-Tayyar although the American authorities discarded their claims.[11]
In June 2010, anonymous U.S.counter-terrorism officials told the Associated Press thatNajibullah Zazi, who was arrested in September 2009 on charges that he planned to suicide bomb theNew York City Subway system, had met with Shukrijumah in a camp in Pakistan.[28] On 8 July 2010, he was put on theFBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.[29]
Shukrijumah and two other leaders were part of an "external operations council" that designed and approved terrorism plots and recruits, but his two counterparts were killed in U.S. drone attacks, leaving Shukrijumah as the de facto chief and successor to Mohammed – his former boss. "He would be equated with being chief of operations," FBI special agent Brian LeBlanc told the US news network, adding that investigators believed Shukrijumah was "extremely dangerous."[30][31]
However, according to theLong War Journal, Shukrijumah was al-Qaeda's operations chief for North America.[32]
On 6 December 2014, Pakistani special forces killed Shukrijumah during a targeted operation in theWana Subdivision ofSouth Waziristan Tribal District duringOperation Zarb-e-Azb.[33]
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