FBI: Ex-BCC Student Running Al Qaida's Global Operations

Former Miramar resident has become chief of the terror network's global operations, according to other Al-Quaida operatives

We don't recall this being an option in Dr. Suess' perennial graduation day favorite, "Oh, The Places You'll Go."

But according to the FBI, a former Broward Community College student is now in charge of Al Qaida's global operations, a job that comes complete with regular contact with Osama bin Ladin, "clear and present danger" status assigned by the Attorney General, and a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

35-year-old Adnan El Shukrijumah, a citizen of Guayana, is the only al-Qaida leader to have held permanent U.S. resident status, officials told the AP.

Investigators say 15 years in the states have made him uniquely capable of planning attacks on American targets, but his mother, Zurah Adbu Ahmed, said she believes the FBI is wrong about her son.

"It's not true," she told the Sun Sentinel from her home in Miramar, where her late husband, a Guayanan native and mosque leader, moved the family in 1995 after a stopover in Brooklyn from Saudi Arabia.

She paused before adding, "I don't know. But I don't think it's true. He's a kind, loving, caring boy."

Adbu Ahmed told the FBI she hasn't heard from her son in nearly a decade. He studied chemistry and computer sciences at BCC, working at a Motorola plant before flying to Trinidad a week before the September 11th attacks to pursue an oportunity selling shoes wholesale.

"He called me two, three days after and said, 'Did you see what happened in New York?'" Adbu Ahmed said. "I told him, 'Don't come back. They are putting what happened on Muslims.'"

She told the paper he called once more a week later and she repeated her warning. She says she has not heard from him since, and has no idea where he is or what he is doing.

But the FBI thinks they have a pretty good idea, naming him as a conspirator in the case against three men who allegedly plotted suicide attacks in the New York City subways last year. Long suspecting him of involvment in plots against Norway, the United Kingdom, and the Panama Canal, they were unable to bring any charges against El Shukrijumah until the men captured in New York identified him as their superior and provided details.

Lead investigator Brian LeBlanc told the Associated Press that El Shukrijumah now holds the position once occupied by Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that he is "making operational decisions."

"He's looking at attacking the U.S. and other Western countries," LeBlanc explained. "Basically through attrition, he has become his old boss."

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