The Last Crusade:

Adnan el-Shukrijumah again has captured national headlines for his part in a plot to blow up New York’s subway system and his association with Najibullah Zazi.

Zazi, an Afghan immigrant who worked as an airport shuttle driver in Denver, pleaded guilty in February to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Federal officials confirm that Shukrijumah has been commissioned by al-Qaeda to spearhead the next great attack on America – a nuclear attack that would take place simultaneously in seven U.S. cities (New York, Boston, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C.), leaving millions dead and the richest and most powerful nation on earth in ashes.

To prepare for this mission, a team of al-Qaeda operatives reportedly were sent to McMaster University in order to gain knowledge of nuclear technology and to obtain access to the reactor.

Along with Shukrijumah, the team consisted of Anas al Liby, an engineer from Libya and member of the al-Qaeda high command; Jaber A. Elbaneh, a Yemeni national and naturalized American citizen who worked closely with the Lackawanna Six domestic cell near Buffalo, New York; and Amer el Matti, a Canadian national and licensed pilot.

Another visitor to the campus, according to several sources, was Abderraouf Jdey, the leader of the Montreal cell of al Qaeda.

At McMaster, Shukrijumah purportedly kept to himself, made few new friends or acquaintances, kept strictly to his studies, and left the facility at the same time as his colleagues. He also managed to obtain employment at the reactor — allegedly as a guide.

Shukrijumah’s “normal’ behavior on the Hamilton campus, a source said, gave him entry to places where dangerous materials were stored without raising undue suspicion. Bit by bit, the al-Qaeda operative allegedly managed to pilfer approximately 180 pounds of nuclear material from the university — enough to build several radiological bombs.

According to Debka, an internet outlet for Israeli intelligence, Shukrijumah was under surveillance by Canadian officials in early October 2003, when he suddenly stopped attending classes and failed to show up for work.

His disappearance aroused no concern, the sources say, until a few days later when the nuclear material was reported missing.

Jayne Johnson, a spokesperson for McMaster University, declined to comment on the reports of Shukrijumah and the other al-Qaeda agents at the school. Other McMaster officials denied that any al Qaeda agents were on campus and that any nuclear or radiological material was missing from the campus.

In an interview pertinent to this report, Pakistani reporter Hamid Mir confirmed that he had received verification that Anas al-Liby was at McMaster and that al-Liby had been instrumental in the removal of radiological/nuclear material from the reactor.

Mir further testified that nuclear weapons and materials had been forward deployed by al-Qaeda to the United States. Despite Mir’s stature among journalists as the only reporter to interview Osama bin Laden in the wake of 9/11, federal officials have neglected to investigate the bases of his claims.

At the conclusion of its investigation, Debka raised the following questions concerning Shukrijumah at McMaster and his mind-boggling vanishing act:

(A) Why were there no agents observing the subject inside the reactor? These sources did not disclose which security agencies were responsible for the surveillance.

(B) Who gave Shukrijumah, a Saudi Arabian under suspicion, access to the reactor? And how is it that no one noticed increasing amounts of nuclear or radiological materials were disappearing over a period of months?

(C) How was Shukrijumah able to give his watchers the slip?

(D) Was the subject tipped off by an inside source in the U. S. or Canadian security services?

Upon their departure from Canada, Shukrijumah and his terrorist friends made their way to Buffalo where they may have been harbored by some members of the notorious Lackawanna (LA) Mosque. Jaber A. Elbaneh was a member of the infamous Lackawanna Six, who provided materiel support to al-Qaeda, and members of the Elbaneh family served in positions of leadership at the LA Mosque.

It is also alleged that Shukrijumah and his accomplices received monetary and logistical support from Mohammed Albanna, who managed to escape under the radar of the bust of the Lackawanna Six.

The search for Shurkijumah got underway with full steam when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda’s third in command, was captured, quite by accident, in Karachi, Pakistan March 1, 2003.

After days of interrogation, coupled with severe sleep deprivation, Mohammed told U.S. officials that bin Laden was planning to create a “nuclear hell storm” in America. Unlike other attacks, the terrorist chief said, the chain of command for the nuclear attack answered directly to bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and a mysterious scientist called “Dr. X.”

Mohammed later admitted that “Dr. X” was Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani father of the Islamic bomb and the godfather of modern nuclear proliferation. He further confessed that the field commander for this operation was a naturalized American citizen whom he also referred to as Mohammed Sher Mohammed Khan and “Jafer al Tayyar” (“Jafer the Pilot”). Both names are aliases of Adnan el Shukrijumah.

Khalid Mohammed went on to say that Adnan represents a “single-cell” — a lone agent capable of launching a solo nuclear or radiological attack on a major American city. The news of such a cell reportedly startled U.S. officials who assumed that al Qaeda cells contained several members who were supported by broad logistical back-up crews.

On March 21, 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller issued a BOLO (“be-on-the-lookout”) alert for Shukrijumah, Amer el-Maati, and Abderraouf Jdey. Four other suspected Islamic terrorists were added to the Seeking Information list: Ahmed Kalfan Ghailani (a.k.a., “Foopie”), who took part in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania; Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, another participant in the bombings; Adam Yahiye Gadahn (a.k.a., Adam Pearlman), a Jewish convert to Islam who grew up on a goat ranch in Riverside County, California; and Aafia Siddiqui, who received a biology degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and penned a doctoral thesis on neurological science at Brandeis University.

Ms. Siddiqui, a native of Pakistan, worked closely with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as a “fixer,” the central al-Qaeda operative who supported money and logistical support to Shukrijumah and his associates from the Saudi embassy.

Several days after the BOLO was issued, Shukrijumah and Jdey were spotted at a Denny’s restaurant in Avon, Colo., where one ordered a chicken sandwich and a salad. Samuel Mac, the restaurant manager, described them as “demanding, rude and obnoxious.”

They told Mac they were from Iran and were driving from New York to the West Coast. Upon calling the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., Mac said the agent who answered the telephone said he had to call the bureau’s Denver office and declined to take down any information.

When Mac called the Denver office of the FBI, he was shuttled to voice mail because “all the agents were busy.” It was five hours before a seemingly uninterested agent called the restaurant manager. This agent, according to Mac, took a few notes and said she would pass the information along to the field agents who were handling the case.

This promise represented the full extent of the government’s interest in the sighting even though Shukrijumah had been labeled by FBI Director Robert Mueller as “the next Mohammad Atta” and even though the FBI had posted a $5 million reward for any information leading to his capture.

The federal and state law enforcement officials failed to interview the restaurant workers and the patrons, purportedly even those who were willing to verify the presence of the terrorists in the restaurant. No forensic evidence was obtained from the scene by any law enforcement officials — not even the utensils that had been used by the suspects.

When contacted by The Denver Post, Monique Kelso, spokeswoman for the Denver bureau, said the office had received at least a dozen calls as a result of the BOLO. The calls, Kelo said, were all taken seriously. She added, “We follow up on every lead.”

By early April, Adnan was safe and secure under the protection of Farouk Razac in Georgetown, Guyana.

Razac represented the Muslim godfather in Guyana. He not only ran an elaborate death squad but also engaged in such nefarious activities as money laundering, arms running, and drug trafficking, most specifically, the cocaine route from Guinea, Trinidad, and Tobago to Canada.

As a radical Sunni, Razac became affiliated with Jamaat ul-Muslimeen, Trinidad’s homegrown terrorist group, and served to secure funding for jihadi ventures.

Shukrijumah was spotted at the Swiss House Cambio, Razac’s money exchange, by several witnesses, including George Bacchus, a law enforcement informant.

At the Cambio, Shukrijumah met one of Razac’s closest clients — Imam Muhammed Hassan Abrahemi, the director of the International Islamic College for Advanced Studies, a small Shiite school in Georgetown that received large amounts of revenue from the government of Iran.

He also became acquainted with Abdul Nur, a civil engineer, who ran errands for Razac; Abdul Kadir, who served as the assistant director at Abrahemi’s Islamic College; and Russell Defreitas, a member of the Guyanese Parliament and leader of Jamaat ul-Muslimeen. This new association would produce a trial of corpses leading to a plot to a botched FBI sting and an attempt to blow up the fuel line that feeds the JFK International Airport in New York.

The first victim was Abrahemi, who was kidnapped by two masked men as he was leaving the Islamic College on April 2, 2004. Several days later, his body was discovered within a shallow grave on the outskirts of Georgetown.

The hit appeared to be professional. Abrahemi had been shot twice in the back of the head while assuming a kneeling position. His mouth had been taped shut with duct tape, and his hands and feet were bound by nylon cords. The perpetuators of the crime have never been caught.

By this time, the FBI had managed to infiltrate Jamaat ul-Muslimeen and made use of undercover agents to pose as jihadis and to work with Nur, Kadir, and Dufreitas in an attempt to lure the elusive Shukrijumah into a trap.

The undercover agents provided the terrorist group with money and logistical support, compliments of US taxpayers, to launch a plot to blow up a system of jet fuel supply tanks and pipelines that feed fuel to the JFK International Airport in Queens, New York.

Later, U. S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskoff would appear before the press to say that the planned attack represented “one of the most chilling plots imaginable” — a plot which might have caused “unthinkable devastation.”

In reality, the plot was a ploy since exploding the fuel tanks represented a technical impossibility. Jet fuel does not produce explosive force, and the pipelines and fuel tanks that are buried beneath Queens have safety valves to prevent any mishap.

The FBI had assumed that a well-oiled scheme to blow up a massive international airport and an entire borough of Manhattan would lure Shukrijumah from his hiding place.

The assumption proved to be incorrect. Shukrijumah failed to appear at any of planning sessions in Trinidad and Guyana, and the federal officials were left not only with a hefty bill for the cockamamie scheme but also the creation of a new and financially flush arm of Jamaat ul-Muslimeen.

Nur, Kadir, Dufreitas and Kareem Ibrahim, a fourth operative, were taken into custody, albeit several the arrests were a result of entrapment. “We thought he could be the invisible hand. He’s always in the shadows, particularly in [the Caribbean]. He’s passed through it, he’s known, his name came up in the conversations. He would have been the prize.”

On May 7, 2007, two months after the airport plot went array, Farouk Razac was found dead in his Georgetown home with a wound to his head and marks around his neck. An autopsy report concluded that he had died of asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation.

Recently, witnesses testified that Adnan was residing in an apartment complex within the quaint Canadian city of Guelph in southern Ontario. They said that Adnan and nine other Muslim men who lived in the building made daily visits to the regional airport where they believed he was working.

The witnesses contacted the authorities and expressed concern about their personal safety, especially since several lived in the complex. But no officials appeared at their doorways to substantiate their claims.

To add to the folly, federal officials have neglected to obtain an arrest warrant for the country’s most wanted terror suspect.

Where is Adnan el-Shukrijumah?

The answer is anyone’s guess despite the fact that he might be carrying a hell of a firecracker.

Tweet