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Adnan el Shukrijumah is a Most Wanted Terrorist

Arabic Aliases : Adnan G. El Shukri Jumah; Abu Arif; Ja'far Al-Tayar; Jaffar Al-Tayyar; Jafar Tayar; Jaafar Al-Tayyar

Also Known As : "Jaffar the Pilot"

From : Saudi Arabia (Saudis Deny Shukrijumah is a Citizen of Their Country)

Date of Birth : August 4, 1975 (29 years old)

March 20, 2003 (US Dept. of Justice)
Be on the Lookout (BOLO)

The FBI has issued a "Be on the Lookout" (BOLO) alert for Adnan G. El Shukrijumah in connection with possible threats against the United States. In the BOLO alert, the FBI expresses interest in locating and questioning El Shukrijumah, and asks all law enforcement personnel to notify the FBI immediately if he is located. El Shukrijumah's current whereabouts are unknown.

El Shukrijumah is possibly involved with al-Qaeda terrorist activities and, if true, poses a serious threat to U.S. Citizens and interests worldwide.

El Shukrijumah is 27 years old and was born in Saudi Arabia. He is approximately 132 pounds (but may be heavier today), 5 '3" to 5'5" tall, has a Mediterranean complexion, black hair, black eyes, and occasionally wears a beard. A photograph of this individual is available on the FBI's website, http://www.fbi.gov/.

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March 24, 2003 (TIME Magazine Online)
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Names Names

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One of the al-Qaeda operatives identified by Mohammed is Adman G. El Shukrijumah, a 27-year-old Saudi who went to college in South Florida. Last week the FBI launched a global manhunt for Shukrijumah, who, officials say, Mohammed has dubbed a leader on a par with Mohammed Atta, the top man on the 9/11 hijack team. Sources tell TIME that U.S. intelligence agencies are urgently searching for at least two other key lieutenants fingered by Mohammed. Still other team names and descriptions have been refined during Mohammed's interrogation. This data has been dispatched to allied intelligence and security services to be placed on lookout lists.

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March 26, 2003 (CBS News)
Most Wanted: The Next Atta?

(CBS) On the day after America went to war in Iraq, the FBI put out a bulletin that, as CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports for 60 Minutes II, reminds us the war on terrorism is far from finished.

FBI agents are desperately looking for a man they say could be the next Mohammad Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers. Like many other al Qaeda members, they say this man was born in Saudi Arabia, attended terrorist camps in Afghanistan and is an expert in explosives.

But, unlike others, he is believed to have been tutored by some of the best minds in al Qaeda. And what makes him really dangerous, the FBI believes, is that he lived in America for several years, which now makes him one of the bureau’s most wanted men in the world.

His name is Adnan El-Shukrijumah, a 27-year-old Saudi Muslim who, the FBI fears, has been anointed the head of a new cell with orders to attack targets inside the United States. Pat D’Amuro is the head of counter terrorism for the FBI and the man who decided to ring the alarm bell.

Of all the suspected al Qaeda operatives out there, where does El-Shukrijumah fit on the FBI's scale?

Says D;Amuro, "This individual would rate in the top five with respect to protection of the homeland... I would say, for domestic reasons, within the continental United States, this individual is very important for the FBI to find."

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March 31, 2003 (Miami Herald)
FBI sees terror; family sees good son

He is now among the most hunted men in America.

But to his family in South Forida, Adnan Gulshair El'Shukri-jumah is the son who -- at the age of 8 -- took over as head of his home in Saudi Arabia in the absence of his missionary father.

They describe him as a brother who loved to picnic in the desert outside Medina and enjoyed American movies but not America's permissive customs.

Though the subject of a global manhunt for his suspected involvement in possible terrorist activities, family members say he was just a normal, good-natured young man who dreamed of a family of his own, whose young adult years in Miramar were filled with driving children to school, buying groceries and taking college courses.

He sometimes went with his father to lead Islamic worship services and took his Muslim heritage seriously. But by their account, Adnan El'Shukri-jumah never showed any signs of taking up the militant causes of extremists.

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June 16, 2003 (USA Today)
Pursuit of al-Qaeda keeps coming back to Fla.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — This spring, FBI agents searching for suspected al-Qaeda terrorist Adnan El Shukrijumah homed in on Hollywood/Pines Boulevard, a leafy commercial strip in the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale. El Shukrijumah, a trained pilot who is the focus of a worldwide search, attended college and a mosque on the boulevard before disappearing in 2001.

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Beginning in the mid-1990s, the 45-mile strip between Miami and Boca Raton was home to El Shukrijumah; the two al-Qaeda wannabes, Mandhai and Shueyb Mossa Jokhan; 12 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers; and Jose Padilla, a suspected al-Qaeda operative who U.S. investigators say once met with El Shukrijumah overseas. Authorities believe that Padilla, a Chicago native being held by the U.S. military as an uncharged "enemy combatant," was interested in getting material for a radioactive "dirty bomb."

Some local Muslim leaders say the connections are incidental and should be expected in a community where men routinely visit several mosques to pray and to socialize.

"I saw (El Shukrijumah, Padilla and Mandhai) at different times in different mosques, and I always said hello," says Sofian Abdelaziz, director of the American Muslim Association of North America, a community services group in North Miami Beach. "Does that make me a terrorist?"

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August 22, 2003 (Front Page Magazine)
CAIR vs. the FBI

In March of 2003, the Miami office of the FBI held a joint press conference with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) concerning the FBI's search for suspected terrorist Adnan El Shukrijumah. According to the FBI, El Shukrijumah was “identified by senior members of the al-Qaeda organization as a very, very, very serious threat to the United States interests, both here and abroad.”

Before the event, the FBI issued a press release, claiming CAIR had “approached the FBI and offered their assistance in reaching out to the Arab-American community to encourage them to provide any information they might have concerning El Shukrijumah and to address concerns within [sic.] community regarding hate crimes.”

Three days later, CAIR issued its own press release. However, this one contradicted the FBI. CAIR’s PR machine claimed that it was not CAIR that approached the FBI, but it was in fact the FBI that approached the radical Islamic group. The CAIR press release states, “The FBI approached us and sought our help.” This may seem like an honest mistake to some, but when CAIR’s concerned, honesty rarely factors in on the equation.

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September 5, 2003 (CBS News)
FBI Hunts 4 Terror Suspects

(CBS/AP) The FBI issued a bulletin Friday announcing a worldwide search for four men in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States.

One of the four is a Saudi with family ties in South Florida, who has previously been described as a possible al Qaeda operative in the mold of Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the 9-11 attackers.

The FBI posted the bulletin on its Web site and circulated it among law enforcement agencies after recent intelligence indicated the four could be involved in an unspecified plot against U.S. interests, said a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The FBI had been seeking information about all four — two Saudis, a Moroccan and a Tunisian — for months, but the new information led officials to intensify the search, said a second official, also on condition of anonymity.

"These individuals should be considered armed and dangerous," the FBI bulletin reads. None of the four are believed to be in the United States.

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October 18, 2003 (Toronto Sun)
Was he at Mac?

McMaster University officials say they have no record of a suspected al-Qaida operative posing as a student or casing their nuclear reactor facility. Adnan El Shukrijumah, who according to yesterday's Washington Times, was seen last year searching for nuclear material for a "dirty bomb" in Hamilton, never enrolled under that name or any of his aliases, a school official said yesterday.

The FBI issued a BOLO (Be on the Lookout) alert for El Shukrijumah, 27, in March.

He is believed to be part of an al-Qaida cell in Canada and the U.S. planning an attack using a dirty bomb, a conventional weapon laced with radioactive material.

El Shukrijumah has been described as a possible al-Qaida planner similar to Mohamed Atta, a key organizer of the Sept. 11 attacks.

A university spokesman said he has complete confidence in safety and security at McMaster's five-megawatt research reactor.

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March 21, 2004 (Fox News)
FBI Issues Alert for Suspected Terrorist

WASHINGTON — A Saudi man being sought by the FBI because he may be plotting terrorist attacks against U.S. targets has been linked to Jose Padilla, an American citizen charged with plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States.

The FBI on Thursday asked law enforcement agencies and the public to be on the lookout for Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 27, who senior law enforcement officials said has received flight training and possesses a Florida driver's license.

"El Shukrijumah is possibly involved with Al Qaeda terrorist activities and, if true, poses a serious threat to U.S. citizens and interests worldwide," the FBI said in a statement.

Officials said El Shukrijumah's organizing capabilities are comparable to those of Mohammed Atta, the suspected organizer of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and some, including Atta, received flight training in Florida.

A federal law enforcement official, speaking Friday on condition of anonymity, said authorities were tipped to El Shukrijumah by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al Qaeda's chief operational planner who was arrested March 1 in Pakistan.

Information recovered after Mohammed's capture includes references to Padilla and El Shukrijumah, who at one time lived near each other in the Miami area, according to the official.

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May 26, 2004 (CNN)
Ashcroft - al Qaida Intends to Attack US

Intelligence from multiple sources indicates that al Qaeda intends to attack the United States in the coming months, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday.

"This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda's specific intention to hit the United States hard," Ashcroft said in a news conference. "Beyond this intelligence, al Qaeda's own public statements indicate that it is almost ready to attack the United States."

Ashcroft said that after the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, Spain, "an al Qaeda spokesman announced 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack on the United States were complete."

Ashcroft cited a number of upcoming events that could be potential targets, including the Group of Eight economic summit on Sea Island, Georgia, and the Democratic and Republican national conventions in Boston, Massachusetts, and New York, respectively.

He also warned that terrorists may not have a typical look and that "the face of al Qaeda may be changing."

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Among the seven were suspected al Qaeda operatives Adnan G. El Shukrijumah and Aafia Siddiqui, two law enforcement sources said.

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May 27, 2004 (Sun-Sentinel.Com)
Miramar Mother Insists Her Son is Not a Terrorist

For El'Shukri-Jumah's family, Ashcroft's announcement served only to renew the despair they have endured since a similar FBI announcement brought the world's attention to their doorstep in March 2003. The family last saw the eldest son in 2001, before the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. His mother said he has called once since then. He said he was teaching English in Morocco, had married and had a son; she warned him to stay away, telling him that the U.S. government was imprisoning Arab and Muslim men without letting them see a lawyer, Ahmed said.

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He may have been uncomfortable with the open expression of sexuality in the American public, but her son never expressed hatred or the desire to harm anybody.

He appreciated this country, its cultural diversity and the kindness of its people, she said.

"You know something," she said, "he and I used to say, `If this country had Islamic law it would be the best country on the Earth.'"

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May 28, 2004 (Denver Post)
2 suspected al-Qaeda agents dropped in for meal, says Denny's manager in Avon

The FBI office in Denver has received "numerous" calls about the seven people believed to be associated with al-Qaeda pictured Wednesday in newspapers.

Monique Kelso, spokeswoman for the Denver office, wouldn't characterize the calls as "sightings," but at least one was reported as such.

Samuel Mac, manager of the Denny's in Avon, isn't happy with the response he got from the FBI when he reported that two of them ate at his restaurant Wednesday.

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Mac said two men - he subsequently identified them from their photographs as Adnan G. El Shukrijumah and Abderraouf Jdey - came into Denny's, which is just off Interstate 70, about 8 p.m.

One ordered a chicken sandwich and a salad, the other just a salad, Mac said. They were demanding, rude and obnoxious, he said.

They said they were from Iran and were driving from New York to the West Coast.

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July 1, 2004 (World Net Daily)
Police Searching for Next Mohammad Atta

Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama are on alert for the possible entry of suspected terrorist Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, after Honduran authorities warned that the 29-year old suspect, referred to by law enforcement sources as "the next Mohammed Atta," may be seeking to cross into one of the countries.

Costa Rica is bordered on the north by Nicaragua and on the south by Panama.

Shukrijumah, who is considered one of the FBI's "top 5" terrorist concerns, allegedly was spotted in Honduras on May 27 at a Tegucigalpa Internet cafe

"We found out that this man was in Tegucigalpa at the end of May," Leonel Sauceda, spokesman for the Honduran Security Ministry told media. "He was seen in an Internet cafe in the city and we confirmed that he made phone calls to France and the United States from there."

Calls were also made to Canada, according to the Security Ministry.

An official with the Honduran Security Ministry told WND the female Internet café owner recognized Shukrijumah from photos in the newspaper. Police arrived at the café just after the suspect had left.

He apparently was speaking in English, and a little in Spanish and French. The suspect was seen with two bearded individuals who "had a rough appearance," according to the government official. Information from the cafe's phone records has been relayed to various allied foreign intelligence agencies.

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August 9, 2004 (NY Times)
Tourist Copters in NYC a Terror Target

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The authorities now believe that one of the men who conducted the surveillance at the New York Stock Exchange was Adnan G. el-Shukrijumah, who was born in Saudi Arabia, has relatives in Florida and on May 26 was the subject of an F.B.I. bulletin seeking information about seven men with suspected ties to terrorists.

Some intelligence officials believe that Mr. Shukrijumah is a close associate of Abu Issa al-Hindi, a suspected operative of Al Qaeda who was one of the men arrested last week in Britain and who was believed to have traveled to the United States at the direction of senior terrorist leaders to supervise and take part in the surveillance of the financial institutions.

There are no charges in the United States against Mr. Shukrijumah, but officials said investigators had been seeking him since shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks because he is believed to have taken flight training and is fluent in English.

The F.B.I. said in its bulletin that Mr. Shukrijumah carried a Guyanese passport but might try to enter the United States with a Saudi, Canadian or Trinidadian passport. One law enforcement official said recent sightings had suggested that he has been in Mexico and Honduras, but those have not been confirmed.

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August 14, 2004 (Dallas Morning News)
Border breaches stir fears

MEXICO CITY – Fears that terrorists might enter the United States via remote stretches of the border with Mexico are not based on idle chatter, according to authorities on both sides.

Dozens of bulletins and requests for help have been forwarded by U.S. intelligence agencies to their Mexican counterparts in the last year. The information triggered searches and investigations into a number of incidents. They include:

• The possible entry from Belize into Mexico's Quintana Roo state, south of Cancún, of a Middle Eastern migrant named Adnam Gushair Shukrijumah. His name reportedly matches one on a U.S. law enforcement watch list, Mexican officials said. Published reports in Mexico said the nation's law enforcement agencies have been warned by U.S. authorities that Mr. Shukrijumah previously had been tracked in Honduras and Panama.

• Flight plans in December by two men – listed by Mexican authorities as Ali M. Safia and Can Azif – whose names also scored hits on U.S. watch lists. The pair arrived in Mexico in the winter of 2003 on one-way tickets from Europe, Mexican officials said. While in Europe they also had purchased one-way tickets for a flight from the western Mexican city of Culiacán to Los Angeles. The pair failed to show for the flight and have not been seen since.

• The arrest in Tijuana in November of Imelda Ortiz Abdala, a former Mexican diplomat in Lebanon. Ms. Ortiz Abdala is accused of participating in a ring that prepared faked Mexican travel documents for migrants from Middle Eastern countries and helped smuggle them into the U.S.

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"Mexicans are jumping all over" the intelligence reports, said the U.S. official, referring to heightened fears among Mexicans that their country could be used as a conduit for terrorism or that terrorists could strike against U.S. interests in Mexico.

For example, reports that Mr. Shukrijumah had crossed into Mexico from Belize last month are being taken seriously, said José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, chief of Mexico's organized crime task force.

"We don't have objective evidence to confirm that he is in Mexico ... but the alert was sounded, and we are looking for him," Mr. Santiago Vasconcelos said in an interview. "Our starting point is our national security, and that's why we moved immediately to the search. ... Secondarily, it's about solidarity, more than anything, with the United States."

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August 15, 2004 (Gaurdian Unlimited)
Countries Run Drills for Panama Attack

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In April 2001, a suspected al-Qaida figure identified as Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah arrived in Panama legally from the United States and stayed for 10 days, said Panama's security council chief, Ramiro Jarvis.

Immigration records show that El Shukrijumah then apparently returned to the United States, Panama Interior Department spokesman David Salayandia said. Authorities have been looking for him since.

Last year, the FBI said it wanted to question El Shukrijumah on suspicion of involvement in plotting al-Qaida attacks on the United States or its interests abroad. But he faces no formal charges, officials said.

U.S. authorities said they are investigating whether there are any links between El Shukrijumah and other terror suspects, including Jose Padilla, an American arrested in 2002 for allegedly plotting to detonate a radioactive bomb. The two apparently both lived in South Florida in the 1990s.

Panama has taken steps to ensure that the canal is protected. In May, it signed an agreement allowing U.S. officials to board Panamanian flagships and search them for weapons of mass destruction.

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August 16, 2004 (The Australian)
Fears summit foreshadows US blitz

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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August 17, 2004 (El Paso Times Online)
FBI looks for possible terrorists along the border

A Saudi terrorist suspect might 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 Paso¹s bridge inspectors, as well as the community at large 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 used to reside in Trinidad and Tobago, off the coast of Latin 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," Art Werge, spokesman for the FBI in El Paso, said.

Officials said Shukrijumah might be using immigrant-smuggling routes through Central America and Mexico to get to the border.

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August 20, 2004 (Charleston.Net)
Glimpses of a Gathering Storm

Recent arrests in Britain appear to have broken up a terrorist ring. What remains unclear, however, is whether authorities have stopped a major plot or just exposed one facet of a still dangerous terrorist operation aimed at a number of nations. Now is not the time to relax our guard.

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But still at large is a third person who was at the Waziristan meeting, Adnan el-Shukrijumah. He is described by Time and the newspaper The Scotsman as a skilled bomb-maker and pilot with multiple passports and identities, who grew up in Florida, speaks excellent English and can pass as Hispanic. Last May, FBI Director Robert Mueller appealed for any information on this man, and Mr. Ashcroft said he is a possible "future facilitator of terrorist acts."

As long as Shukrijumah is at large, it is too soon to assume that the British arrests have put an end to a plot against American targets. Meanwhile, other evidence suggests that al-Qaida has been planning a major offensive this fall.

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Adnan el Shukrijumah was also mentioned in Osama's Revenge, a recent book focusing on the possibility of nuclear terrorism in the United States : Quotes

Possible operatives in the nuclear plot:

"Four purported al Qaeda operatives - Adnan el Shukrijumah, Anas al Liby, Jaber A. Elbaneh, and Amer el Maati - had been sent to Hamilton, Ontario, where they either enrolled or posed as students at McMaster University, a state-of-the-art technological institution that housed a 5-megawat nuclear research reactor."

McMaster University Rebuts Report of Nuclear Theft

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