Militant Islam Monitor > Weblog > BOLO :Texas and Arizona on alert for dirty bomber wannabee Shukrijumah-officials warn of border crossing from Mexico
BOLO :Texas and Arizona on alert for dirty bomber wannabee Shukrijumah-officials warn of border crossing from Mexico
August 18, 2004
MIM : Adnan Shukrijunah the son of Saudi funded Wahabi cleric in Miramar was named by law enforcement as 'Mohammed Atta's sucessor' based on information from Khalid Sheik Mohammed the 9/11 mastermind who was captured in Pakistan last year. Even if the alert is now being declared "old news" by the FBI, the fact that Shukrijumah was cited in close proximity to the US and that he and his family enjoy community support in Florida, as witnessed by the 1,000 people who turned out for the funeral of Adnan's father , Gulshair, who was lauded by local Islamist leaders.
Indeed, Gulshair's longstanding ties to the international terrorism network helped make son Adhan the sought after potential dirty bomber he is today, and maybe also be helping him avoid arrest and enter the US to carry out an attack.
MIM: Gulshair Shukrijumah died in Miramar last week allegedly as a result of a stroke brought on by seeing his son's as yet thwarted attempts to follow in his terror tainted footsteps .
Some sources attributed his demise to "the will of Allah".
His funeral was attended by around 1,000 people who "prayed for Allah to accept their departed Sheik into his arms".
The press described Gulshair as an"esteemed Islamic teacher" and Ibrahim Dremali,the Imam of the Boca Raton Islamic Center, fondly recalled that "He(Shukrijumah), had a positive effect on people".
Having a son who is accused of being an Al Qaeda terrorist operative is ample proof of Dremali's Islamist weltaanshaung about what is considered as"having a postive effect on people"
. Dremali's own son, Abdulrahman, was convicted in 2003 of stabbing a fellow Boca Middle School student with a pair of scissors, before he was transferred to an Islamic school which could better accomodate him.
The Shukrijumah's said that Adnan "disappeared" a few months before 9/11 .Neighbors claim to have seen him after the attacks. )
Gulshair was also listed as a director of the Shamshuddin Islamic Center, which is connected to the AMANA ,(American Muslim Society of North America), which is run by "close family friend" Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, aka Abdelaziz, who implied that if his own son were one of America's Most Wanted terrorism suspects, "I would be very depressed", I don't think my health could take it. "
Americans who get "very depressed" about the prospect of a dirty bomb being detonated by Gulshair's son, or someone else's, and are wondering whether "their health could take it",should be very moved by the Shukrijumah family friend's empathetic sentiments.
In Sunni South Florida, the Muslim community is just one big Jihadi family
Shukrijumah was spotted in Honduras earlier this year, FBI officials said, and formerly resided in Trinidad and Tobago, off the coast of South America.
"He is believed to be one of the most dangerous cell leader below the leadership of al-Qaeda who plans to hurt the United States," said Art Werge, spokesman for the FBI in El Paso.
Officials said Shukrijumah might be using immigrant-smuggling routes through Central America and Mexico to get to the border.
MIM: For the past two months law enforcement officials have mentioned sitings of Adnan Shukrijumah close to the United States and it believed that he will try to enter the country to perpetrate a terrorist attack.
Several months ago Shukrijumah was said to have been in Wazinstan, Pakistan, where he attended a "terror summit" .
Shukrijumah was labelled as Mohammed Atta's sucessor after the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed who identified both Jose Padilla and Adnan Shukrijumah as Al Qaeda operatives who were plotting to detonate a radiological device.
Both Padilla and Shukrijumah had lived in South Florida ,trained at the same camps in Afghanistan, and were supposed to go on a joint terror mission but a personality clash preempted their working together.
It has been widely reported that they both knew each other and were seen in various mosques in South Florida .It was reported that Mandhi was arrested at his home after returning from Dar Ul Uloom.
A close family friend of the Shukrijumah's,Sofian Abdelaziz Zakout, director of the American Muslim Association had seen Padilla, Shukrijumah, and Imran Mandhi at a local mosque and belligerently stated." "I saw (El Shukrijumah, Padilla and Mandhai) at different times in different mosques, and I always said hello. Does that make me a terrorist?
Shukrijumah attended various mosques such as the Dar Ul Uloom Islamic Center in Pembroke Pines, lead by Maulana Shafayat Mohammed.The center was also frequented by Jokhan and Mandhai and Jose Padilla, who studied Koran there.
MIM Note : Imran Mandhai was jailed last year together with Moessa Shuyeb Jokhan, for plotting to wage Jihad in Florida by blowing up FPL installations and Jewish businesses.
Mandhai, Jokhan, and Shukrijumah were all Broward Community College students. Imran Mandhai's father is a friend of Mohammed Javed Qureshi, who was Jose Padilla's supervisor at Taco Bell ,and was instrumental in the conversion to Islam of Padilla and his wife, Cherie Stultz . Imran Mandhai and Adnan Shukrijumah went out to restaurants together, according to Adnan's father Gulshair , who had been teaching Mandhi about Islam at the Shukrijumah home .
After Adnan Shukrijumah was named as a terrorist suspect by the FBI, his father cried to the press that he had been told to leave his position at the Miramar Al Hirjah mosque, which was next door to his home, and was put on the board of directors of AMANA's Shamshuddin Islamic Center in North Miami Beach, which was run by Sofian Abdelaziz Zakout, and is directly across the street from the AMANA offices .
Shukijumah's father Gulshair recently died and his funeral was attended by nearly 1,000 people who lauded the Saudi funded cleric who himself had terrorist connections going back to the WTC bombing in 1993. He was eulogized by AMANA's Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, and Imam Ibrahim Dremali, of the Boca Raton Islamic Center. Dremali is also an advisor to AMANA. http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/143
Given the love and respect accorded to Gulshair Shukrijumah by the Florida Muslim community, and that fact that his family has consistently made contradictory statements as to his activities and location , one can only hope that law enforcement is focusing close to home to determine who knows his whereabouts and whom he might contact among the families supportive friends, colleagues, and Miramar neighbors.
"(Adnan )Shukrijumah disappeared from his Miramar Fla., home before 9-11 and hasn't talked with his family in more than a year. His name surfaced on paperwork in al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, and last March captured terrorist leader Khalid Sheik Muhammed also identified him as a budding new cell leader.
His father denies it.
"I do not believe that. Because I know my son was not a violent person," Gulshair Shurkrijumah says."
MIM: Adnan's now deceased father neglected to mention his son's police record for battery, for the hitting and biting of his youngest sister, which resulted in the police being called to the home .
It was a gathering of terrorism's elite, and they slipped silently into Pakistan from all over the world in order to attend. From England came Abu Issa al-Hindi, an Indian convert to radical Islam who specializes in surveillance. From an unknown hideout came Adnan el-Shukrijumah, an accomplished Arab Guyanese bombmaker and commercial pilot. And from Queens in New York City came Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani American who arrived with cash, sleeping bags, ponchos, waterproof socks and other supplies for the mountain-bound jihadis.
The March 2004 terrorist summit in the lawless province of Waziristan, described to TIME by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last week and expounded on by U.S. officials, has become a subject of obsession for authorities in both countries. "The personalities involved, the operations, the fact that a major explosives expert came here and went back," Musharraf said, "all this was extremely significant." Although some summit participants have been arrested, others are still at large and are considered very dangerous.
Section: News
Arizona, Sonora on alert for al-Qaida suspect Adnan G. El Shukrijumah
By Michael Marizco ARIZONA DAILY STAR 18 August 2004http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/34783.php A borderwide alert has been issued for a suspected al-Qaida member who U.S. investigators believe may try to cross the border through Arizona or Texas, officials said Tuesday. Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 29, a Saudi, is suspected of being an al-Qaida cell leader and has been wanted by the United States since 2003. The latest information places him in Honduras with the intent of crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, said Art Werge, a spokesman for the FBI's El Paso office. "We certainly don't want him crossing into the United States because his plan is to conduct terror operations," Werge said, describing El Shukrijumah as one of the more significant cell leaders not in custody. El Shukrijumah has not been charged in the United States with any crimes. The FBI says El Shukrijumah speaks English and carries a Guyanese passport but might also try to enter the United States with a Saudi, Canadian or Trinidadian passport. In March 2003, a U.S. District Court in Virginia issued a warrant to detain El Shukrijumah. The alert was issued by the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, because of concerns El Shukrijumah will use popular smuggling routes from Mexico to enter the United States, said consulate spokeswoman Joanne Joria. On Tuesday, the information was disseminated to the state of Sonora as concerns grew that El Shukrijumah could enter through Sonora and then Arizona. The consulate in Nogales, Sonora, received the information Tuesday, said Alberto Chapetti, a consulate official. The alert prompted a statewide caution for Sonora from the National Migration Institute, Mexico's immigration enforcement agency. The regional delegate for the Institute, Jorge Luis Mireles Navarro, was not available for comment but told Hermosillo newspaper El Imparcial that he had issued the statewide alert once the information was confirmed El Shukrijumah may try to cross through Sonora. The institute also increased the number of checkpoints and identification searches throughout the state, said Bulmaro Pacheco, spokesman for Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours Castelo. "The state's in the best possible position to collaborate with U.S. authorities and our own attorney general's office in this investigation," Pacheco said. "With the kilometers we share with Arizona, the potential for a threat is there, but right now it's only a presumption, only a name. Whatever situation may arise, we'll be in contact with the United States," he said. ● Contact reporter Michael Marizco at 573-4213 or [email protected].
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - The FBI has asked police in Guyana for help in locating one of America's most wanted terror suspect, Adnan el Shukrijumah, a Saudi-born al Qaeda suspect who once lived in South Florida.
Dennis Pierce, an FBI agent at the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Venezuela, said Tuesday that the agency had given a full briefing to local police and other law enforcement agencies as authorities try to track down the Saudi-born man.
Pierce also noted the $5 million reward for information leading to Shukrijumah's capture, saying he is one of the most wanted men in the United States.
U.S. officials have said only that he is a suspected al Qaeda member.
Pierce said an FBI team, which was in Guyana this week to help run a training course for local police, used the chance to ask for help in finding Shukrijumah, whose Guyana-born father was for decades a respected Muslim cleric in Guyana and nearby Trinidad.
"We showed and distributed wanted posters and bulletins and asked them to be on the lookout just in case he doubles back here because we know he has been here about two to three years ago," Pierce told The Herald.
Shukrijumah was seen in Guyana as late as December, and was reportedly spotted in Honduras earlier this year.
Shukrijumah's father grew up in Guyana and ran a mosque there after returning from theological studies in Saudi Arabia in the 1960s.
He later retired to Miramar, where he died earlier this year.
A Saudi terrorist suspect may be making his way to the U.S.-Mexico border amid groups of undocumented immigrants, officials with the FBI and the U.S. Embassy said.
Officials on both sides of the border have asked law-enforcement officials, including Border Patrol agents and El Paso's bridge inspectors, as well as the public, to be on the lookout for Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 29, a native of Saudi Arabia who may be using a Guyanese, Canadian or Trinidadian passport.
Shukrijumah was spotted in Honduras earlier this year, FBI officials said, and formerly resided in Trinidad and Tobago, off the coast of South America.
"He is believed to be one of the most dangerous cell leader below the leadership of al-Qaeda who plans to hurt the United States," said Art Werge, spokesman for the FBI in El Paso.
Officials said Shukrijumah might be using immigrant-smuggling routes through Central America and Mexico to get to the border.
Shukrijumah has reportedly received training in aircraft and explosives, Werge said. He weighs about 130 pounds, stands 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-5 and occasionally wears a beard. He speaks English.
A $5,000 reward is offered for information leading to his capture.
For more information, visit www.fbi.gov; Louie Gilot may be reached at [email protected]; 546-6131.
Fears summit foreshadows US blitz From AFP 17aug04 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,10468339,00.html NEW YORK: US and Pakistani authorities fear a meeting of terrorist leaders in Pakistan was the precursor to a major al-Qa'ida attack on America, according to Time magazine.
Authorities discovered a "second string" of terrorist leaders met in the remote northwestern province of Waziristan in March, the magazine reported yesterday.
"The personalities involved, the operations, the fact an explosives expert came here and went back, all this was extremely significant," Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said.
Some US officials fear the summit meeting might have been a key planning session ahead of a major attack -- just as the September 11, 2001, strike on the US was preceded by an al-Qa'ida gathering in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, 11 months earlier.
A US official described those at the Pakistan summit as "cold-blooded killers who are very skilled at what they do and have an intense desire to inflict an awful lot of pain and suffering on America".
Participants included Abu Issa al Hindi, an Indian convert to radical Islam and surveillance specialist living in Britain; Adnan el Shukrijumah, a commercial pilot and bombmaker of Arab-Guyanese origin; and Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani-American who arrived at the summit with cash, sleeping bags and ponchos, Time reported.
Al Hindi is now under arrest in Britain, and Mohammed Babar was arrested in New York in April.
Others, including Shukrijumah, 29, are still at large. Shukrijumah "speaks English and has the ability to fit in and look innocuous", an FBI agent told Time.
Shukrijumah was born in Guyana and raised in Florida, where his late father, a Saudi-Yemeni cleric, preached hardline Wahhabism at a small mosque. He reportedly holds passports from Guyana and Trinidad, and may also have Canadian and Saudi passports. He can easily pass for Hispanic and authorities fear he may cross the Canadian or Mexican borders.
The FBI said Shukrijumah could be the "next Atta", a reference to Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the September 11 attacks.
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FBI says border alert for terrorist is old news Dennis Wagner The Arizona Republic Aug. 19, 200412:00 AM
Several publications reported Wednesday on an FBI alert about Adnan El Shukrijumah, thought to be an al-Qaida cell leader.
But Special Agent Susan Herskovits said the story is based on speculation stemming from old and unverified intelligence.
Months ago, Herskovits said, investigators received an unconfirmed report that Shukrijumah had been sighted in Honduras. Based on that information, and the fear that he might try to enter the United States to carry out a terrorist attack, there was speculation that he could mingle with Hispanic immigrants crossing the Arizona or Texas border.
So the FBI, which has spread a wide net in the hunt for Shukrijumah, issued a bulletin to law enforcement officials along the Mexican border.
"It's not new," Herskovits said Wednesday. "We've had three 'be-on-the-lookouts' alerts for this guy (since March). . . . And it's not like the sighting in Honduras was even verified."
Shukrijumah, described as a pilot and bombmaker, was among several suspected al-Qaida figures who met in Pakistan during March, according to the Los Angeles Times and other publications. Pakistani officials said that meeting also was attended by Osama bin Laden lieutenant Abu Eisa al Hindi, and communications engineer Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, whose computer discs allegedly contained surveillance reports for a planned attack on buildings in the United States and Britain.
Attorney General John Ashcroft recently singled out Shukrijumah as one of seven especially dangerous international terror figures wanted by the government. A $5 million reward has been issued for information leading to his capture.
Shukrijumah, a 29-year-old Arab-American who suffers from asthma, reportedly was born in Guyana, raised in south Florida and speaks fluent English. The son of a radical Muslim cleric who recently died in Florida, he also is known by several aliases and nicknames, including "Jaffar the Pilot."
Newsweek magazine said authorities have been hunting Shukrijumah since al-Qaida's attack on the WorldTradeCenter and Pentagon. With no solid leads, counterterrorism agents began trying to smoke him out with publicity.
Besides the alert along Mexico's border, FBI agents have warned that he might attempt to enter the United States via Canada or might return to Florida. They also asked officials in Guyana to help locate him.
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Being the father of an aspiring dirty bomber with terrorist ties to terrorist going back 20 years, and having one's name on the Saudi payroll appears to have been a job asset for Adnan Shukrijumah's father Gulshair.After the Al Hirjah mosque next to his Miramar home supposedly asked him to step down, due to unwanted publicity, Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, the director of AMANA- The American Muslim Society of North America,and a Shukrijumah family friend offered "the Sheik' a place on the board of directors of the Shamshuddin Islamic Center.
In 2003 Gulshair intimated that losing his $500 dollar a month position as Imam at Al Hijrah would bring financial hardship to him and his family . He sniveled to the press that "I feel very said because I have done no wrong", and declared that "if my son is suspect in something it does not mean that I too am also suspect."
According to Michael Isikoff's and Mark Hosenball's April 2004 Newsweek investigative articles into Saudi government terror funding :
"The Florida based Imam (Gulshair Shukrijumah),has been on the FBI radar screen for some time."
"In response to the U.S. calls for tighter controls the Saudi government terminated payments to Gulshair El Shukrijumah, along with a number of other clerics being supported by the embassy."
Gulshair Shukrijumah collected $19,400 dollars in checks from the Saudi embassy between 2000 and 2003 . He also acted as interpreter for the 'Blind Sheik' Omar Abdel Rahman who masterminded the 1993 WTC bombings,as well as plots to bomb other U.S. landmarks, and instigated attacks abroad
A 2003 listing for the Shamshuddin Islamic Center shows that Adnan Shukrijumah father was on the board of directors under the name of Gilshair Shukri jamal.
Al Qaeda Possibly Targeting The U.S. Through Mexico With Nuclear Weapons
Time Magazine is reporting that al-Qaeda has worked on plans to smuggle nuclear weapons out of Europe and into the US through Mexico.
A key al-Qaeda operative seized in Pakistan recently offered an alarming account of the group's potential plans to target the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction, senior U.S. security officials tell TIME. Sharif al-Masri, an Egyptian who was captured in late August near Pakistan's border with Iran and Afghanistan, has told his interrogators of "al-Qaeda's interest in moving nuclear materials from Europe to either the U.S. or Mexico," according to a report circulating among U.S. government officials.
Masri also said al-Qaeda has considered plans to "smuggle nuclear materials to Mexico, then operatives would carry material into the U.S.," according to the report, parts of which were read to TIME. Masri says his family, seeking refuge from al-Qaeda hunters, is now in Iran.