Al Qaeda agent smuggles people into United States

IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent September 29 2004

Copyright © 2004 Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights Reserved

AN al Qaeda agent who helped plan the September 11 attacks has met leaders of a Salvadorean crime syndicate which controls the smuggling of illegal immigrants across the Mexican border into the US, according to intelligence sources.
The CIA fears Adnan el Shukrijumah, 29, a Yemeni with a £3m bounty on his head, is negotiating a deal to infiltrate terrorist network members into American cities to stage attacks in the run-up to the presidential elections in November.
El Shukrijumah was identified during surveillance of a meeting of Mara Salvatrucha gang leaders in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, where security forces are on alert for al Qaeda operations against British, Spanish and US embassies.
Mara Salvatrucha, whose first name is taken after a breed of soldier-ants, runs a base in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of the Texas state line, and controls street gangs in Los Angeles, Washington and New York.
The al Qaeda agent is known to have crossed into Honduras illegally from Nicaragua this summer to meet the gang.
El Shukijumah was identified in 2001 and from interrogation of captives at Guantanamo Bay as a key "fixer" who had a hand in the preparations for the hijacking of the aircraft used on September 11.
At that time, he lived in Florida and had a pilot's licence. He was named in May as one of seven al Qaeda suspects wanted in connection with new plots for attacks in the US.
In 2003, he escaped from Canada after authorities there claimed he was seeking radioactive material for a "dirty bomb".
John Ashcroft, the US attorney-general, described him earlier this year as "a clear and present danger to the US and a major threat to homeland security".
More than 60,000 illegal immigrants of non-Mexican origin were picked on the border along the Rio Grande River last year.
An intelligence source said the gang had been responsible for hundreds of murders, robberies and drug-related criminal activity as well as people-smuggling.

interesting and also frightening!!!

Recent articles in the News Media quote U.S. government sources denying the reported contact between Mara Salvatrucha members and Al Qaeda in Honduras. But street sources here in Los Angeles say that the MS-13 gang helps OTMs (Other than Mexicans) cross the border. Nothing solid, just vague references to Arabs paying big money to get in. MS specializes in false identification and other documents in the Rampart and MacArthur Park districts.