Datelined Charlieville, Trinidad and Tobago, a fascinating article by Josh Meyer in the Los Angeles Times today about the worldwide hunt, fruitless so far, for Adnan Gulshair Muhammad el-Shukrijumah, 31, US citizen, computer technician by trade, jihadist by avocation, and (strongly) suspected top-level operative of the al-Qaeda version 2.0 that many experts believe is currently forming.

Charlieville, a rural Muslim community in T & T, is where Shukrijumah spent the week of the September 11 attacks, and where the FBI went looking for him 18 months later, by which time he was of course long gone. Why T & T? Not entirely clear, but Shukrijumah is originally Guyanese (and thus very likely partly or mostly desi) and the two countries have numerous cultural affinities that include supporting each other’s music, football teams, cricket stars, and now perhaps more sinister affinities among groups with nefarious intent.

Known by various aliases, including “The South American,” Shukrijumah has quite a reputation and the skills and credentials to move with relative ease:

Whereas Al Qaeda’s core followers are young, poor and relatively uneducated, Shukrijumah has attended college and is comfortable with technology. He’s also a naturalized U.S. citizen whose appearance would allow him to pass as Latino, Indian or Middle Eastern and who speaks English with no discernible accent, officials say. …

When asked which operative was most likely to launch a U.S.-based attack, many captives mentioned one particular figure with an almost mythical reputation as a ruthless militant. His nom de guerre was Jaffar al Tayyar, a reference to an Islamic hero who had fought beside the prophet Muhammad.

But his identity, too, was a mystery.

The pieces began to come together in early March when [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed was captured in Pakistan and his computers, phones and other electronic gear were seized.

The evidence confirmed that Mohammed had been sending “Westernized” Al Qaeda soldiers on missions into the U.S. and other countries.

And when Mohammed was shown a photograph of Shukrijumah, he identified him as Tayyar, U.S. counter-terrorism officials said.

By then, U.S. authorities were concluding that Shukrijumah was also the shadowy South American, an apparent reference to his time spent in Trinidad and nearby Guyana.

To their dismay, they realized that one of Al Qaeda’s best-trained operatives had been lurking — and perhaps plotting — in the United States since long before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Read the article to find out about Shukrijumah’s upbringing, education, and passage into active jihadist training and fighting in Afghanistan. One part that struck me is how al-Qaida “made a man” of Shukrijumah, surely a key aspect of the psychological appeal of these organizations. As a youth, Shukrijumah was sidelined by asthma and grew increasingly confident, competent, and effective as his involvement in the organization developed, after starting off as the equivalent of an undrafted free agent trying to make the team:

At the camps, Shukrijumah was initially rejected for training. Instead, he started at the bottom, doing dishes and menial work before earning the right to train with weapons and tactics, agents say. …

After he started traveling to Pakistan and Afghanistan, however, Shukrijumah began to change, say friends and associates interviewed by the FBI. He would take off for long periods, to places overseas he would not discuss.

“Every time he came back, he was a different person,” the FBI official said. “He was more calm, more cool and more purposeful in his actions.”

Shukrijumah’s father, an Islamic missionary in Florida who was paid by the Saudi government, died in 2004. And his mother, Zuhrah Abdu Ahmed, hasn’t seen him in five years:

Sitting on the front stoop of the family home, Ahmed — a tiny woman with warm brown eyes and a big smile, dressed in a flowing black robe and head scarf — said her son didn’t like South Florida’s freewheeling singles scene and the nightclubs and bikinis.

“But he like America so much,” she said. “People, he say, [are] very nice and kind. If only they more decent, he say, this would be the best place on Earth.”