Pakistan, while aiding jihadis on the one hand, moves against them on the other, so as to make sure that the gravy train keeps rolling in from Washington. But they needn’t worry. Accountability isn’t Washington’s strong suit.
“Pakistan says it killed senior al-Qaeda operative charged in NY subway plot,” by Haq Nawaz Khan and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, December 6, 2014:
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Saudi American accused of plotting to bomb the New York City subway system in 2009 was killed in a pre-dawn army attack on a remote al-Qaeda militant 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,” the statement added. A Pakistani soldier was slain in the operation, it said.
Shukrijumah was believed to be in charge of al Qaeda’s external operations. His killing is the latest blow to a terror network whose leadership ranks have been depleted in recent years, most notably with the U.S. raid in 2011 that killed Osama bin Laden.
The Saudi-born Shukrijumah, who is in his late 30s, appears to 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.
A naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in New York and South Florida, Shukrijumah fled the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2010, he was charged in a failed plot to blow up three New York City subway lines the previous year. At the time, prosecutors described the planned operation as the most significant threat to New York since the Sept. 11 attacks. They also alleged he was involved in a scheme to attack a shopping center in Manchester, England….