Al-Qaeda terror chief behind London and New York bomb plots is killed in army shoot-out..........

One of al-Qaeda’s most senior leaders who had been implicated in plots to blow up the London Underground and the New York metro has been killed during a raid on his hideout in Pakistan.

Adnan Shukrijumah, the terror group's chief of global operations, died along with two other suspected terrorists in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area early on Saturday, the country’s military said.

Shukrijumah was found hiding in a compound following an army operation to hunt him down. A New York court has accused Shukrijumah, who lived in the US for 15 years, of being the mastermind behind a series of plots against the West, including plans to blow up the London Underground and trains in new York and Norway.

Shukrijumah took on the role in al-Qaeda that was previously held by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on the twin Towers and who was captured in 2003.

Federal prosecutors in the US allege Shukrijumah recruited three men in 2008 to receive training in the lawless tribal region of Pakistan for carrying out attacks on subway systems.

The New York indictment links him to the bomb plots in new York and London, which were never carried out.

Pakistan military said it had killed Shukrijumah in Shinwarsak, South Waziristan. The FBI lists Shukrijumah, who is from Saudi Arabia, as a “most wanted” terrorist and had offered up to £3.2 million reward for his capture.

“The al-Qaeda leader, who was killed by the Pakistan army in a successful operation, is the same person who had been indicted in the United Stated,” said a senior Pakistani army officer.

Attorney General Eric Holder had called the plot on the New York subway one of the most dangerous since the terror attacks of 9/11.

After the attacks on the Twin Towers, Shukrijumah was seen as one of al-Qaeda’s best chances to attack inside the US or Europe, according to testimony given to US authorities by Abu Zubaydah, a captured terrorist. Shukrijumah studied at a community college in Florida but when the FBI arrived to arrest him as a material witness to a terrorism case in 2003, he already had left the country.

In 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft called Shukrijumah a “clear and present danger” to the United States.