'Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah' (
Arabic: عبدالله Ø£ØÙ…د 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
[3] his aliases 'Abu Mariam', 'Abu Mohamed Al-Masri', and 'Saleh', which may be
[4] 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.
[Washington Post, October 29, 2002, background on AAA and Saif al-Adel] Later speculation put him in Iran under the protection of the Quds Force,
[Asia Times October 17, 2003, claim about Iran and Quds Force] and in Somalia under the protection of the
Islamic Courts Union.
[5] A more substantial report,
[6] 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
[7] 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.
[8]
References
1. Copy of indictment USA v. Usama bin Laden et al., Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies
2. Wanted poster on AAA, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice
3. c
4. UNHCR information on various wanted Egyptians
5. canada.com December 25, 2006, claim about Somalia
6. Liberia's Taylor gave aid to Qaeda, UN probe finds, ''Boston Globe'', 4 August 2004
7. Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
8. Wanted Poster on AAA, Rewards for Justice Program, US Department of State