PESHAWAR, pakistan — A Saudi-American accused of plotting to bomb the New York City subway system was killed in a pre-dawn army attack on a remote al-Qaeda hideout, Pakistani officials said Saturday.
Helicopter gunships targeted Adnan el Shukrijumah in the lawless region of South Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.
He had moved there recently after escaping another Pakistani military operation in the neighboring North Waziristan region, they said. Two of his men were also killed in the attack, the officials said.
The military said that, in an operation based on intelligence information, “top al-Qaeda leader Adnan el Shukrijumah was killed by (the) Pakistan Army in an early-morning raid in Shinwarsak, South Waziristan, today. His accomplice and local facilitator were also killed in the raid.”
A Pakistani soldier also was killed in the operation, the military statement added.
Shukrijumah, a member of al-Qaeda’s leadership, was thought to be in charge of all of the terrorist network’s external operations.
The Saudi-born Shukrijumah, who was in his late 30s, would be the highest ranking al-Qaeda member to be killed by the Pakistani military.
The FBI launched a global manhunt for Shukrijumah in 2003, offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. U.S. officials at the time described him as an “imminent threat to U.S. citizens and interests,” adding that he was possibly as significant an organizer of terrorist acts as Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Shukrijumah was identified as a key al-Qaeda operative by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the senior planner for the terrorist network. A naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in New York and South Florida, Shukrijumah fled the United States after 9/11.
