Jamestown.org does a wrap up of
news on Shukrijumah. If he shifted to GG methods by paying gangs for
infrastructure/market disruption in Mexico and the US (if he became a
violence capitalist), we would be in much tougher position.
Shukrijumah's connections with radioactive material is not
fresh news. Early last year he was identified as having been present at
McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, which is the site of a
5,000-watt research reactor. The university has since made strenuous
efforts to dispel persistent rumors of missing nuclear material,
amounting to some 82 or 86 kilos' [180 or 189 pounds], or of missing
irradiated material taken either from the reactor itself, or from
stores at other areas of the campus such as the hospital.
With or without this material, his status as one of the few
top-ranking al-Qaeda members still at large is exercising security
forces across Central America. Early this year Shukrijumah was spotted
in Guyana, then at an internet café in May in Honduras, where he was
identified during surveillance of a meeting of Mara Salvatrucha gang
leaders in the capital Tegucigalpa. These are a violent Salvadorean
crime syndicate originating in Los Angeles and specializing in the
smuggling of illegal immigrants across the Mexican border. The
implication of this is that Shukrijumah may be negotiating a deal to
infiltrate himself, and perhaps other al-Qaeda members, into the United
States. The latest sighting of Shukrijumah was in August in the Sonoro
province of northern Mexico…
If Shukrijumah has indeed succeeded in linking up with criminal
syndicates such as the Mara Salvatrucha gang, it is a sobering thought.
The gang has some form of presence in virtually every Hispanic
community across the United States, and can thus offer al-Qaeda
unparalleled infiltration into any city in the country.
[John Robb's Weblog]