By Curt Anderson, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The FBI is still working to establish links between a Saudi-born man, suspected of being part of the al-Qaida network, and other terror suspects including alleged “dirty bomb” plotter Jose Padilla.
Adnan El Shukrijumah, 27, lived in South Florida at the same time as Padilla, an American being held in a military brig on charges of being an “enemy combatant.” Padilla is suspected of planning to detonate a “dirty bomb” that would have spewed radiological material into the air.
The FBI Thursday launched a manhunt for El Shukrijumah and linked him to al-Qaida.
The investigation spread yesterday to Guyana and Trinidad, both countries from which El Shukrijumah was believed to hold a passport. One official said it appeared that any passport from Trinidad had been forged.
It was unclear whether El Shukrijumah and Padilla knew each other in Florida. FBI officials said they believe El Shukrijumah is an al-Qaida member meant to carry out attacks, rather than a senior planner or financier.
El Shukrijumah’s father, Gulshair Muhammad El Shukrijumah, 73, said yesterday from his home in Miramar, Fla., that his son was not a terrorist and did not know Padilla.
The son left home two years ago, according to the father, a spiritual leader in a Miramar mosque. When they last talked five months ago, the son was teaching English in Morocco, El Shukrijumah said.
“He does not hate anyone,” the father said. “I always trained my children to hate evil and not evildoers.”
El Shukrijumah’s six known aliases have circulated for months, even appearing on a previous FBI alert about an individual the bureau now believes may not exist or may be a composite.
That alert, for a Pakistani named Mohammed Sher Mohammed Khan, included variations on the name Jaffar Al-Tayyar that are identical to those the FBI says are used by El Shukrijumah.
In yet another wrinkle, that alias translates roughly from Arabic to English as “Jaffar the pilot,” according to Language Analysis Systems, a Herndon, Va., company that specializes in name-recognition software. FBI officials said they think El Shukrijumah had trained as a pilot, but his father denied that.