El Shukrijumah was born in Saudi Arabia to a Guyanese father.

The other men being sought by the FBI are Abderraouf Jdey, a Tunisian; Zubayr Al-Rimi, a Saudi and Karim El Mejjati, a Moroccan. Two of those men are suspected to be involved in the recent bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, according to a report from the Washington Post.

The 28 year-old El Shukrijumah was first identified as a possible terror organiser in March by captured al-Qaeda operations planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Shukrijumah previously lived in South Florida, where he still has family.

The FBI, the report from the Washington Post stated, is especially concerned about Shukrijumah, a spokesman said, “because of his particular skills: He is a pilot, speaks English, has false documents and knows the country.”

The article stated that the US authorities previously said they had linked an alias used by Shukrijumah to an Oklahoma flight school where Zacarias Moussaoui, charged as a conspirator in the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, received flight training. But they said then that they had no evidence Shukrijumah had received pilot training in the United States, the report stated.

FBI officials told the Washington Post that they had received information indicating that Shukrijumah is a pilot, though he did not train in the United States. Authorities suspect he could have links to dirty-bomb-plotting suspect Jose Padilla, who also lived for a time in South Florida and is being held in a military brig in South Carolina as an enemy combatant, the report stated.

Shukrijumah’s family lives in Miramar, a Miami suburb, and his father, Gulshair Mohamed El Shukrijumah, has served as head of a prayer centre, Masjid al Hijrah. Neighbours have said that Shukrijumah sold Islamic books, that they had not seen him in several years and that they believed he was off doing missionary work. In March, he was let go from the centre because of the suspected terror links the son is said to have.

The FBI has said that Shukrijumah may be travelling on passports from Guyana, Trinidad, Canada or Saudi Arabia and could be in Morocco. He is being sought on a material-witness warrant by federal authorities in the Eastern District of Virginia, the paper reported.

El Shukrijumah first came to prominence in March of this year when the FBI issued a ‘Be on the lookout’ for him after receiving word that he may be linked to terrorist activities.

At that time, Stabroek News was able track the mosque in Peter’s Hall on the East Bank of Demerara where El Shukrijumah’s father worshipped before his departure in 1962.

When Stabroek News contacted the suspect’s father by telephone in March, he said that he had last heard from his son when they spoke some months ago. The younger El Shukrijumah was said to have been teaching English in Morocco.

Also in March, local police confirmed that the man was indeed the holder of a Guyanese passport, to which he was entitled, being a Guyanese by descent. His latest passport had been issued by the Guyana Consulate in Washington DC on June 4, 1999 and prior to this, he was the holder of a Guyanese passport issued in 1984. The police also confirmed that El Shukrijumah’s father and siblings held Guyanese passports.

Gulshair Mohamed El Shukrijumah went to Trinidad on his departure from Guyana and was very active in Islam. After working for two years there, he took up an offer from the Egyptian government to pursue Islamic studies. In 1967 he completed studies in Egypt and went on to further his studies in Saudi Arabia where he met and married a Yemeni woman. Son Adnan was born in 1975.