Abderraouf bin Habib bin Yousef Jdey (Arabic: عبد الرؤوف جدي, Abd ar-Rawūf Jday) (also known as Farouk al-Tunisi and Al-Rauf Al-Jiddi) (born May 30, 1965) is a Canadian citizen,[1] who was found swearing to die as a shaheed (martyr) on a series of videotapes found in the rubble of Mohammed Atef's house in Afghanistan in 2002.[2][3][4][5]
The United States has issued three separate alerts that Jdey was about to attack inside the country, in January 2002, September 2003 and May 2004.[6] Three years later, the United States announced that he was one of a handful of terrorists actively plotting to attack the country, although none of their predictions ever panned out.
Life
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American authorities allege that he "may" have trained at Mes Aynak alongside hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in Afghanistan, before being assigned to a second wave of attacks. A letter written by Saif al-Adel, and later found by American forces, suggested that Jdey may have originally been slated to have participated in the original September 11 attacks[9][11]
Jdey returned to Montreal in early 2001. Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, while being harshly interrogated, said that Jdey then backed out of the plan.[12] According to a 2010 Harvard report on al Qaeda by a former CIA officer, Jdey was detained in summer 2001 together with Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui was carrying textbooks on cropdusting; Jdey was carrying textbooks on biology. Jdey was evidently subsequently released.[13] In November 2001, he left Canada, several months after obtaining a replacement passport for one he'd received two years earlier which he claimed to have lost.[6] He was believed to be bound for Europe.[7][9]
Four months later, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah agreed to cooperate with American authorities in exchange for a reduced sentence. A known colleague of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, he stated that Mohamed's lieutenant had told him that Reid and Jdey had both been enlisted by the al-Qaeda chief to carry out identical plots as part of a "second wave" of attacks against the United States.[15][16][17][18]
United States 2002 claims
A composite image created by the FBI to show how Jdey may try to disguise himself.
Three days later, the FBI released to the public the first FBI Seeking Information – Terrorism list in order to profile the five wanted terrorists about whom very little was known, but who were suspected of plotting additional terrorist attacks in martyrdom operations.[20][21] Already under fire for issuing "excessive and somewhat alarmist" warnings about terrorists plotting against the United States, Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft stated that Jdey and Faker Boussora were likely traveling together and should be considered "extremely dangerous".[22]
A month after Jdey and Boussora were declared fugitives, the Republic of Turkey announced that the pair may be within their borders.[23]
Ramzi bin al-Shibh was interrogated at an American black site in 2003 about his knowledge of Jdey, and confessed that Jdey had been recruited by al-Qaeda.[24] The following year Walid bin 'Attash, similarly interrogated under harsh circumstances at The Dark Prison, confirmed that Jdey had been known to him.[25]
The day after the announcement, there was a reported sighting of Jdey and Shukrijumah at a Denny's restaurant in Colorado.[dead link][29] The following year, another tip suggested that the pair had been seen driving a car with a Massachusetts license plate in Maine.[dead link][29]
