FBI: New al-Qaida global chief is expert on U.S.

A suspected al-Qaida operative who lived for more than 15 years in the United States has become chief of the terror network's global operations, the FBI says, marking the first time a leader so intimately familiar with American society has been placed in charge of planning attacks.

Adnan Shukrijumah, 35, has taken over a position once held by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured in 2003, Miami-based FBI counterterrorism agent Brian LeBlanc told The Associated Press. That puts him in regular contact with al-Qaida's senior leadership, including Osama bin Laden, LeBlanc said.

"He's making operational decisions is the best way to put it," said LeBlanc, the FBI's lead Shukrijumah investigator. "He's looking at attacking the U.S. and other Western countries. Basically through attrition, he has become his old boss."

The FBI has been searching for Shukrijumah since 2003. He is thought to be the only al-Qaida leader to have once held permanent U.S. resident status, or a green card. He was named earlier this year in a federal indictment in Brooklyn as a planner of the 2009 thwarted suicide bomb attacks on New York's subway system.

Adis Medunjanin, one of three Flushing High School graduates he allegedly recruited during their visit to Pakistan to carry out the attacks, pleaded not guilty to the indictment in Brooklyn federal court Friday.

Fellow Queens plotters Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty and become informants, but Medunjanin is now charged as part of a global conspiracy with Shukrijumah and four other al-Qaida operatives. Medunjanin is the only one currently in U.S. custody, and his lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, got no answer Friday when he asked if he would have company when he goes to trial.

"That's a conversation you should have with the government," U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie told Gottlieb.

The FBI says Shukrijumah used his savvy about America to draw in the three Queens men. "It was basically Adnan who convinced them to come back to the United States and do this attack," LeBlanc told the AP. "His ability to manipulate someone like that and direct that, I think it speaks volumes."

Shukrijumah is also suspected of playing a role in plotting of potential al-Qaida bomb attacks in Norway and a never-executed attack on subways in Britain.

Before becoming radicalized, he lived in Miramar, Fla., with his mother and five siblings, excelling at computer science and chemistry while studying at community college. He had come to South Florida in 1995.

Shukrijumah's mother, Zurah Adbu Ahmed, said at her home in suburban Miramar on Thursday her son frequently talked about what he considered excesses of American society - such as alcohol and drug abuse and women wearing skimpy clothes - but that he did not condone violence. She said she has not had contact with her son for several years. With John Riley