WANA, Pakistan — Pakistani helicopter gunships staged a pre-dawn raid on a militant hideout Saturday and shot dead a top al-Qaida operative wanted for plotting to bomb at the New York subway system, the military said.
The FBI offered a $5 million reward for the capture of Saudi national Adnan el-Shukrijumah, 39, who it said was believed to be al-Qaida’s external operations chief at one time.
Shukrijumah, who had a Guyanese passport, was the most senior al-Qaida member ever killed by the Pakistani military.
“In an intelligence borne operation, top al-Qaida leader Adnan el Shukrijumah was killed by (the) Pakistan Army in an early morning raid in Shinwarsak, South Waziristan today,” the military statement said. The remote region borders Afghanistan.
“His accomplice and local facilitator were also killed in the raid,” the statement said.
The military said Shukrijumah recently had been forced to move by a Pakistani military operation in neighboring North Waziristan.
The region was the Taliban’s key stronghold in Pakistan and a hotbed of militancy until the military launched an offensive to retake the territory on June 15.
Pre-dawn raid
In Wana, the capital of South Waziristan, all phone lines and mobile phone signals were shut down overnight and the roads were blocked, a Reuters reporter there said.
Residents awoke just before dawn to the thudding of helicopter gunships and the growl of convoys of military vehicles approaching from several directions.
The vehicles went to a small house in a neighborhood residents said was known to be sympathetic to the Taliban. The house had been used to shelter Afghan Taliban for years.
An Afghan neighbor said an Arab man moved into the house nearly two months ago. The man only moved around at night and residents never saw him, he said.
One military official said security forces had first heard Chinese hostages were held there and planned a large operation when they learned it was Shukrijumah. “Thousands” of soldiers were involved in the operation, the official said.
Two intelligence officers said the militants opened fire on the Pakistani military and Shukrijumah, whom one described as “an Arab national,” was killed in the ensuing gun battle. One soldier was killed and another wounded, the military said.
A military official said five other militants were taken into custody during the raid, but intelligence officials said they were Shukrijumah’s wife and four children.
Shukrijumah is wanted in the United States for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and to commit murder in a foreign country.
“The charges reveal that the plot against New York City’s subway system, uncovered in September of 2009, was directed by senior al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan,” the FBI website said.
Prosecutors described the plot at the time as the most serious threat to New York since the 9/11 attacks.
Shukrijumah also was linked by U.S. authorities to other suspects, including a group accused of planning to bomb fuel pipelines at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.