Khus kum jahan pak.
Al-Qaeda chief Adnan el Shukrijumah ‘killed in Pakistan’
The FBI called Shukrijumah a ‘most-wanted’ terrorist
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A senior al-Qaeda militant, accused of planning to bomb trains in New York and London, has been killed in Pakistan, the country’s military says.
Adnan el Shukrijumah was killed in a raid in north-western Pakistan, near the Afghan border, the military said.
The FBI describes him as al-Qaeda’s global operations chief, a post once held by the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Shukrijumah was born in Saudi Arabia and lived for several years in the US.
He was named in a US federal indictment as a conspirator in the case against three men accused of plotting suicide bomb attacks on New York’s subway system in 2009.
He is also suspected of having played a role in plotting al-Qaeda attacks in Panama, Norway and the UK.
Analysis: M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, IslamabadThe killing of Adnan el Shukrijumah is the first major militant casualty since June when the Pakistani military launched a major operation to clean up the largest militant sanctuary on the country’s soil.
It comes days after Pakistani army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif returned from a week-long visit of the US, the first by an army chief in four years. On Thursday, the US Congress extended a $1b operational support to Pakistani army despite recent tensions and mistrust.
The killing also puts the spotlight back on the Western half of South Waziristan, the first militant sanctuary in Pakistan where al-Qaeda and Taliban groups fleeing American bombing in October 2001 took shelter. Shukrijuma’s killing in an army raid in this region shows that it is now being used as a hideout by militants fleeing the military offensive in North Waziristan.
Local militant groups still control territory here, and are still considered largely friendly to the army, but now there may be more persistent questions over this relationship.
BBC News - Al-Qaeda chief Adnan el Shukrijumah ‘killed in Pakistan’