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State Department Offers $5 Million Reward for Al-Qaeda Dirty Bomb Plotter Who Attempted to Enter U.S.
The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $5 million for the capture of a top al-Qaeda cell leader seen in Mexico and Canada who is suspected of working to develop a radiological “dirty bomb” and smuggle it into the United States, the Washington Times reported today (see GSN, Sept. 17). Adnan El Shukrijumah, who worshipped at the same South Florida mosque as Jose Padilla (see GSN, June 2), used false passports in failed efforts to enter the United States, according to federal authorities. The names of both El Shukrijumah and Padilla came to light during an interrogation of captured senior al-Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has been called a mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Times reported. El Shukrijumah posed as a student at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario last year, according to Canadian authorities. The United States supplies fuel rods for the university’s five-megawatt nuclear research reactor, according to the Times. There has been no security breach of the facility, Canadian officials said, but an FBI informant claims Shukrijumah was seeking to acquire radioactive materials from the reactor. El Shukrijumah is believed to be about 5-feet-4-inches in height and is known to law enforcement officials as the “diminutive terrorist,” according to the Times. He has met with alien smugglers in Mexico and Honduras, seeking assistance in bringing al-Qaeda operatives into the United States, authorities said. He is also believed to have taken part in surveillance efforts by al-Qaeda of the financial districts in New York this summer, leading to an increase in the terror alert level from Code Yellow to Code Orange in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J., authorities said. An FBI bulletin in March said El Shukrijumah was born in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government, however, has denied that he is a citizen (Jerry Seper, Washington Times, Oct. 5).
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