Pakistan army kills al-Qaeda commander

A high-level al-Qaeda leader who was wanted in the US over a bomb plot, has been killed during a raid in Pakistan’s tribal region, according to Pakistan’s military.

Adnan Shukrijumah was killed along with two other suspected fighters in South Waziristan early on Saturday, the Pakistani military said in a statement.

One Pakistani soldier died while another was critically injured in the operation, the statement said.

A Guyanese national who was born in Saudi Arabia, Shukrijumah is believed to have been al-Qaeda’s external-operations chief, although it is not clear whether he was still in that role at the time of his death.

“The al-Qaeda leader, who was killed by the Pakistan army in a successful operation, is the same person who had been indicted in the United States,” a senior Pakistani army officer told the Associated Press news agency.

Federal prosecutors in the US alleged that Shukrijumah had recruited three men in 2008 to receive training in Pakistan’s tribal areas with the intention of bombing the New York City subway system.

The FBI had offered a $5m reward for his capture.

Pakistan said Shukrijumah had fled to South Waziristan following the commencement of a military operation, Zarb-e-Azb, in neighbouring North Waziristan.

The two other people killed along with Shukrijumah were described as an “accomplice” and a “local facilitator”.

The alleged Manhattan subway-bombing plot was uncovered in September 2009 and Shukrijumah was indicted in that case by a New York court in July 2010.

The indictment also linked him to a similar never-executed scheme to attack British subways.

Eric Holder, US attorney-general, has called the alleged New York plot one of the most dangerous since the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.

Shukrijumah had lived in the US – specifically Brooklyn in New York and Fort Lauderdale among other towns in Florida – as a child and young adult.