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Summary A manhunt is under way for American-born Jude Keenan and two other Qaeda suspects.
As the world remembers 9/11 on its anniversary, Jude’s picture has been posted on the FBI’s most-wanted list. New York went into security lockdown with all suspicious vehicles being searched by police.The FBI said Jude is wanted for “conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in a foreign country”.Jude is feared to be behind a “credible” al-Qaeda threat to set off a bomb in a vehicle on a bridge or in a tunnel in New York or Washington.Born in Florida, he dropped out of North Carolina’s Fuquay-Varina High School in 2006 and left the US two years later to visit Pakistan, his father’s home country.A jury in North Carolina indicted him and seven other men in 2009 on charges that they conspired to carry out terrorist acts around the world.It is believed Jude then went into hiding.Police said information about the bomb plot came from a trusted source in Pakistan who “has never been wrong”.The source said the men had been personally recruited by Osama bin Laden’s successor as Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has vowed to avenge the terror lord’s death.It is feared Jude and another American citizen of Arab descent left Afghanistan and travelled through Dubai to reach the US as recently as last week.Detectives consider that Jude – who has no past terror record – is adept at blending into normal society.He is thought to be part of a cell of eight US-based Jihadists, one of whom drove a truck bearing a sticker saying “Support our troops” so as to appear a normal American.
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