Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah alias Saleh | |
|---|---|
 Senior al-Qaeda suspect | |
| Born | circa 1963 Egypt |
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah (Arabic: عبدالله أحمد عبدالله; born about 1963) (AAA) is an Egyptian national wanted[1][2] by the United States for his part in the 1998 American embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and especially Nairobi, Kenya. The FBI lists[2] his aliases Abu Mariam, Abu Mohamed Al-Masri, and Saleh, which may be[3] an abbreviation of Saleh Gamal.
According to the indictment, AAA
- was a member of the majlis al shura of al-Qaeda
- helped (with Saif al-Adel) to set up terrorist training facilities in Somalia
- provided a false passport to Mohammed Saddiq Odeh to enable the latter to travel to Afghanistan to meet Osama bin Laden
- told Odeh that he should leave Kenya by August 6, 1998 (the day before the bombings)
- fled Kenya himself, to Karachi, on the same airliner as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.
AAA's location since he fled Nairobi has been unknown. In the few years after his disappearance, he was generally thought to be in tribal Afghanistan or Pakistan.[4] Later speculation put him in Iran under the protection of the Quds Force,[5] and in Somalia under the protection of the Islamic Courts Union.[6] A more substantial report,[7] citing unnamed UN and other sources, says that AAA and other al-Qaeda personnel were in Liberia around 2001, buying conflict diamonds on behalf of al-Qaeda. But another claim about Iran has appeared; the MIPT record on AAA[8] reads in part
A joint Saudi-Egyptian-Jordanian intelligence inquiry in April 2006 concluded that Abdullah currently resides in Southeast Iran, under the protection of the Hamze unit of the Revolutionary Guards.
AAA was one of the 22 original members, and is still a member, of the FBI's list of Most Wanted Terrorists. The State Department, through the Rewards for Justice Program, is offering up to US$5 million for information on the location of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah.[9]
References
- ^ Copy of indictment USA v. Usama bin Laden et al., Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies
- ^ a b Wanted poster on AAA, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice Cite error: The named reference "fbiAAA" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ UNHCR information on various wanted Egyptians
- ^ Washington Post, October 29, 2002, background on AAA and Saif al-Adel
- ^ Asia Times October 17, 2003, claim about Iran and Quds Force
- ^ canada.com December 25, 2006, claim about Somalia
- ^ Liberia's Taylor gave aid to Qaeda, UN probe finds, Boston Globe, 4 August 2004
- ^ Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
- ^ Wanted Poster on AAA, Rewards for Justice Program, US Department of State