4/7/03 The global advisory issued by the FBI in late March gave no hint of the many twists and turns that led the bureau to Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah. But there was no doubting the urgency of the plea for help. Senior FBI officials tell U.S. News that they believe El Shukrijumah, 27, is a "grave danger" to the United States.
As a result, the officials say, the FBI, the CIA, and several foreign intelligence services have begun a worldwide search for the elusive young man who once resided in South Florida and is known to carry multiple passports. "We are very worried," says a U.S. official. "Wherever he is in the world, we think he might be a key al Qaeda operative targeting U.S. interests."
On March 19, intelligence and law enforcement officials conclusively identified El Shukrijumah--described by one counterterrorism specialist as possibly the next Mohamed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker.
Top-tier al Qaeda detainees, including the alleged key planner of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, helped make the identification, government officials say. "We can't possibly overstate," a U.S. intelligence official said, "the value that Khalid Shaikh Mohammad has been to us."
A wide array of other intelligence information and sources indicate that El Shukrijumah may have been asked by al Qaeda to lead a new "suicide squad," like that led by Atta.
The Saudi Arabia-born El Shukrijumah is also suspected of having ties to former Chicago gang member Jose Padilla, now being detained as an "enemy combatant" because authorities believe he wanted to detonate a "dirty bomb" on American soil.
Law enforcement officials are not sure what exactly El Shukrijumah may be planning, but they say he could target gas stations, fuel trucks, subway systems, trains, or bridges. "Our No. 1 priority," Larry Mefford, assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, told U.S. News, "is to find sleeper cells if they exist. If El Shukrijumah were to be in the U.S., he would possibly be in that category."
The story of the hunt for El Shukrijumah is a tale of cryptic tips, false leads, and wasted time and effort. But it also offers a rare glimpse into the twilight world of terrorists that law enforcement officials must penetrate in order to prevent another major attack on America.
The story starts in 2001. El Shukrijumah appeared as a blip on the FBI's intelligence radar screen in March of that year, after special agents in Miami used an informant to penetrate a local mosque.
The agents were interested in a man named Imran Mandhai, who frequented the mosque. The informant recorded Mandhai repeatedly vowing to create a jihad cell, consisting of 25 or 30 men, including El Shukrijumah.
The cell, Mandhai said, would target electric substations, Jewish institutions, a National Guard armory, even Mount Rushmore. "It was no secret that [El Shukrijumah] was pretty radical," says a federal law enforcement source, "and that Mandhai thought he would be interested in what they were doing."
But El Shukrijumah was suspicious. He declined to join the jihad plans, correctly surmising that the feds were on to Mandhai.
But they were more worried about keeping tabs on Mandhai and his coconspirator, Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, than they were about El Shukrijumah.
During this period, family members say, El Shukrijumah was attending Broward Community College and working as a freelance computer technician. The only thing the feds had on El Shukrijumah, sources say, was a lie on his green-card application regarding a prior arrest. So his name went into a file, and that was that.
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After watching that 9/11 movie...I can now picture in my head, the discussions and type of search this is going on...but, I also am now more in FEAR...because of that movie...and how one word for or against a decision can affect the whole USA.
I bet they want to affect the Nov. elections...and get a dem majority...which would mean doing something between now and the election...
I would watch out for this guy...and where I live is a place that has al-queda cells...but, I gotta tell you (I don't mean to be racist)..they look enough alike that I would have a hard time even with a picture...I am afraid.