In spite of the federal government denials that Islamic militants may have tried to cross the Mexican border to conduct operations in the U.S., a Judicial Watch investigation reveals that al-Qaeda terrorist Adnan G. El Shukrijumah (also spelled Shukijumah in Spanish-language reports), whose mom still lives in Miramar, FL, hid in a Mexican border city across Douglas, Arizona in 2004.

El Shukrijumah was connected to Mohammed Atta, and both were with another man at the Miami immigration office on May 2, 2001,

Adnan G. el Shukrijumah, an al-Qaida terrorist leader once based in South Florida, hid in northern Mexico with two other Arab militants in a border city across from Douglas, Arizona, in 2004, newly released State Department cables say.

One of the cables noted that the information about Shukrijumah, killed in Pakistan in 2014, came from a trusted confidential source who had a relative involved in migrant smuggling.

This matters because

In the case of the Shukrijumah cables, they suggest that the federal government was wrong to deny that Islamic militants may have tried to cross the porous Mexican border to conduct operations in the United States.

The Shukrijumah case has attracted wide attention since the 9/11 Commission in 2004 published a report quoting an immigration officer as saying that she was “75 percent sure” she saw the Miramar resident with hijack leader Mohamed Atta and another man at the immigration office in Miami on May 2, 2001 — four months before the plane attacks. Atta piloted the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center twin towers in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. The second man with Atta, the commission report said, was possibly Ziad Jarrah, the pilot who crashed his plane into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers rebelled and tried to storm the cockpit to recover control of the aircraft.

The possible presence of Shukrijumah with the 9/11 pilots stirred speculation that the terror leaders received assistance from U.S.-based militants while they plotted the attacks.

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Related:
The Miami Herald article reports that Shrukrijumah’s mother has said her son left for Trinidad in January 2001. Here is a report on Jihad in Trinidad.