Underwear Bomber Sentencing Underway With Expected Life Imprisonment

The admitted terrorist who sought to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on its way to Detoit is in court today for sentencing. It's widely expected that Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab will receive a life sentence.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the privileged son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, returns to federal court in Detroit on Thursday to receive a mandatory life sentence for trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253, four months after pleading guilty and admitting it was a suicide mission for al-Qaida.

The hearing is an open platform for passengers and crew who want to speak, but only five of nearly 300 are expected to address the court, according to the government.

Abdulmutallab, 25, tried to detonate explosive chemicals that were hidden in his underwear minutes before the plane landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The government says he first performed a ritual in the lavatory — brushing his teeth and perfuming himself — and returned to his seat. The device didn't work as planned, but still produced flame, smoke and panic in the cabin.

"I've become bolder. I've become stronger," said passenger Shama Chopra, 56, of Montreal, who plans to speak in court. She ran unsuccessfully for the Canadian Parliament in 2011, a race she couldn't have imagined joining years ago.

"I don't have to feel weak," Chopra said in an interview Wednesday. "I don't have to be scared of anything. God has given me a second chance to live."

On the second day of the trial in October, Abdulmutallab suddenly pleaded guilty to all charges. In a defiant speech, he said he was carrying a "blessed weapon" to avenge Muslims who have been killed or poorly treated around the world. He admitted he was inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric and leading al-Qaida figure in Yemen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike last fall.

"The Quran obliges every able Muslim to participate in jihad and fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, and kill them wherever you find them ... an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," Abdulmutallab said.

His lawyers are trying to argue that a life sentence is unconstitutional because he didn't succeed in carrying out the attack that was intended to blow up the plane and all those on board. That argument is a last-ditch attempt to avoid life in prison and it's not likely to work. Mutallab is expected to also give a statement, and I'd expect that he'll use the opportunity to once again rail against the American justice system, the US in general, and to reaffirm his support for jihad.

Yet, that's not the most bizarre part of today's hearing. Among the five people who are testifying today is a passenger, Kurt Haskell, who has been blogging that the terrorist was conspiring with the US government so as to pave the way for full-body scanners to be installed at airports.

Underwear Bomber Enters Guilty Plea in Attempt To Blow Up Plane Christmas Day

You no longer have to say "alleged" underwear bombing suspect Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab. Today, he admitted in open court to attempting to blow up the plane by using explosives sewn into his underwear.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab answered questions from U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds before pleading guilty to all eight charges he faced, including conspiracy to commit terrorism and attempted murder.

"Are you therefore pleading guilty freely and voluntarily?" Edmunds asked.

"That's right, yes," Abdulmutallab replied.

Edmunds reviewed the charges and possible penalties with Abdulmutallab before he entered his pleas, including that he faces a sentence of up to life in prison.

He's accused of trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas 2009. The bomb didn't work, and passengers jumped on Abdulmutallab when they saw smoke and fire.

Prosecutors' evidence was stacked high. Abdulmutallab was badly burned in a plane full of witnesses. The government said he told FBI agents he was working for al-Qaida and directed by Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical, American-born Muslim cleric recently killed by the U.S. in Yemen.

There are also photos of his scorched shorts as well as video of Abdulmutallab explaining his suicide mission before departing for the U.S.

That's a change of face and tactics from just a few days ago when he was defiant in court and attempted to use the courtroom to further his agenda of jihad.

Christmas Day Underwear Bomber Trial Gets Underway With Defiant Defendant

The trial of Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab is getting underway today, and the suspected terrorist is defiant in his hatred and views of the United States.

A Nigerian man accused of trying to bring down an international jetliner with a bomb in his underwear walked into the start of his federal trial Tuesday and declared that a radical Islamic cleric killed by the U.S. military is alive.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's outburst came as jury selection got under way for his federal terror trial in Detroit, where the 24-year-old is acting as his own attorney and has previously told reporters they should stop reporting that Osama bin Laden was dead.

"Anwar is alive," Abdulmutallab said Tuesday, referring to American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed last week by a joint CIA-U.S. military air strike in Yemen.

"The mujahadeen will wipe out the U.S. — the cancer U.S.," he added.

Abdulmutallab, a well-educated Nigerian from an upper-class family, was directed by al-Awlaki and wanted to become a martyr when he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in Amsterdam on Christmas 2009, according to the government.

Awlaki was killed in airstrikes a couple of days ago, but Awlaki was successful in recruiting numerous terrorists to join or act as lone wolf affiliates of al Qaeda. Mutallab is one such thug who attempted to blow up an airplane using a bomb sewn into his underwear just minutes before the plane was to land at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The bomb failed, but passengers and crew pounced on Mutallab to prevent further attempts and to foil the plot.

Mutallab entered not guilty pleas to multiple terrorism-related charges, including including conspiracy to commit terrorism and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. The government says he wanted to blow up the plane by detonating chemicals in his underwear, just seven minutes before the jet carrying 279 passengers and a crew of 11 was to land at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Drone Strike in Yemen Was Targeting Anwar Al-Awlaki

One of al Qaeda's leading ideologues and recruiters, Anwar al-Awlaki, was apparently the target of yet another UAV airstrike today, but was unsuccessful in eliminating the man whose writings on Islam inspired the Fort Hood shooter Major Hassan, the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, Christmas day bomber Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, among others. He's also linked with the 9/11 attacks in that he was apparently the spiritual adviser for at least two of the 19 hijackers.

That it comes so quickly after the raid on Osama bin Laden could be a coincidence, or it could mean that the US is exploiting the terabytes of data collected in the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader.

The attack does not appear to have killed Mr. Awlaki, the officials said, but may have killed operatives of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen.

It was the first American strike in Yemen using a remotely piloted drone since 2002, when the C.I.A. struck a car carrying a group of suspected militants, including an American citizen, who were believed to have Qaeda ties. And the attack came just three days after American commandos invaded a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda.

The attack on Thursday was part of a clandestine Pentagon program to hunt members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group believed responsible for a number of failed attempts to strike the United States, including the thwarted plot to blow up a trans-Atlantic jet on Dec. 25, 2009, as it was preparing to land in Detroit.

Although Mr. Awlaki is not thought to be one of the group’s senior leaders, he has been made a target by American military and intelligence operatives because he has recruited English-speaking Islamist militants to Yemen to carry out attacks overseas. His radical sermons, broadcast on the Internet, have a large global following.

The Obama administration has taken the rare step of approving Mr. Awlaki’s killing, even though he is an American citizen.

Awlaki has made his reputation as being a top recruiter for al Qaeda and exploiting jihadi sentiments online.

CNN reports that the Awlaki raid was not due to information garnered from the bin Laden raid. Further, this particular UAV airstrike was under the command of the Pentagon, not the CIA.

Investigations Continue Into Cargo Bomb Plot

The cargo bomb plot's links to al Qaeda are firming up. The bombs' hallmarks indicate one of al Qaeda's bombmakers in Yemen, and the intentions and plot are more sophisticated than previously released.

And the bombs actually flew on passenger planes before being transferred to cargo flights

The explosive found hidden in a package on a plane in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Friday, had traveled on two passenger planes to get there, a Qatar Airways spokesman told CNN Sunday.

Edward Cameron did not say which flights they were or how many people were on board.

Al Qaeda bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, 28, who is thought to be in Yemen, is linked to that package and another one found on a second airplane in the United Kingdom on Friday, a federal official told CNN Sunday.

Separately, an engineering student has been arrested in Yemen as authorities investigate the apparent plot to bomb airplanes with devices hidden inside computer printers, a human rights lawyer in the poor Arab country told CNN.

The student, Hanan Al-Samawi, is a fifth-year student at Sanaa University, in the capital, said Abdul-Rahman Barman, who said he has been asked to represent her.

Her mother, Amatulillah Mohammed, has also been arrested, Barman said, calling the arrest of the mother illegal.

The bombs were put together by the same terrorist who designed the underwear bomb worn by Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab last December 25th. The explosive involved is the same in both incidents - PETN. Just six grams of the explosive can be sufficient to blow a hole in the fuselage of an aircraft. A search for further explosive packages turned up nothing. It's not clear how the Saudis got tipped off to the bomb plot, or how or where the bombs were set to explode.

It's unclear how the Saudis were clued in, but earlier this month, a leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen, Jabir Jubran al Fayfi, turned himself in to the Saudi government. Picked up by American forces in Afghanistan in 2001, he had been held in Guantanamo Bay before being turned over to the Saudis. He went through a rehabilitation program for militants and was released, only to rejoin al Qaeda in 2006.

But al Fayfi contacted Saudi authorities from Yemen to express his regret and readiness to surrender, the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement Oct 15.

Authorities were still investigating whether the plot sought to blow up the cargo planes in midair or upon landing -— or whether the bombs were intended for the Chicago addresses on the packages.

British Home Secretary Theresa May said in London Saturday that the device found at the East Midlands airport "was viable and could have exploded. The target may have been an aircraft and had it detonated the aircraft could have been brought down."

She added, "We do not believe that the perpetrators of the attack would have known the location of the device when it was planned to explode."

There's no word of how the bombs were going to detonate - whether they had a timer or altitude sensor or other methods to cause the bombs to explode. Investigators are probably keeping those details secret for now while they continue working back to the terror cell that carried out the plot.

It's possible that the explosives were meant to blow up the planes over urban areas - spreading devastation over a wide area. Or they could have been meant to blow up the planes over the ocean to obscure the cause and make tracing the attack back to the perpetrators. A third possibility is to detonate the bombs on landing - causing the maximum amount of damage to the airport destinations.



The British government says that they are going to look at tightening cargo security, but the fact that these explosives found their way on passenger planes before they were ultimately discovered on the cargo flights in Dubai and East Midlands Airport shows that there are serious holes in air security.

Air security is only as good as its weakest link. Al Qaeda is going to continue exploiting air security gaps, and Yemen is a huge hole in air security worldwide. Containment is absolutely critical meaning that air security must screen packages and cargo coming from the country much more closely than they have to date.

Video Shows Underwear Bomber Training With Al Qaeda

ABC News has apparently gotten its hands on a video showing the Christmas Day underwear bomber, Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, training with al Qaeda in Yemen.

The footage can be found here. In addition to the typical martyrdom statement, the real key is that other individuals are visible and potentially identifiable and the US needs to figure out who these others are. This particular camp was apparently also under US surveillance because a section of video shows a UAV flying overhead and the terrorists' futile attempts to shoot it down.

Mutallab may be able to help authorities figure out who else was there and their potential targets and whereabouts.

Another section of video also appears to confirm ties between al Qaeda and Anwar al-Awlaki.

Congress Warned Terror Attack Likely Within Next Six Months

Well, we've always been threatened by international terrorists for more than two decades, but this is a particularly worrisome report; Congress was warned that we should expect a terror attack within the US within the next six months from an al Qaeda or an affiliate:

The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the “primary near-term security concern of the United States.”

Citing a recent wave of terrorist plots, including the failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up an airliner as it approached Detroit, Mr. Blair and other intelligence officials told a Senate panel that Al Qaeda had adjusted its tactics to more effectively strike American targets domestically and abroad.

“The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11,” said Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director. “It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect.”

As the C.I.A. continues its campaign of drone attacks aimed at Qaeda operatives in the mountains of Pakistan, the officials also said that the network’s splinter groups in Yemen and Somalia were taking on more importance.

But Mr. Blair began his annual threat testimony before Congress by saying that the threat of a crippling attack on telecommunications and other computer networks was growing as an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies had “severely threatened” the sometimes fragile systems undergirding the country’s information infrastructure.

It is highly unusual that the CIA and national security establishment would provide such a specific timeframe for their analysis.

Yet, the DHS advisory system is unchanged: it's yellow generally and orange for flights. It would behoove DHS to increase the threat levels so as to increase scrutiny on those areas it considers to be possible targets if they're really contemplating that a terror attack would be attempted within the next six months.

At the same time, the intel services are concerned that there may be a cyberattack that could result in crippling damage of some form.

Meanwhile, there are reports that the underwear bombing suspect Abdul Mutallab is talking to investigators and giving valuable intel. That could be part of the reason that the intel services believe that al Qaeda is threatening an attack within the next six months.

In recent days, two law enforcement sources said, Abdulmutallab has told authorities more about where he trained overseas and others he met there -- leads that the FBI has shared with other members of the U.S. intelligence community. Investigators are following up to corroborate the information.

U.S. investigators flew members of Abdulmutallab's family from Nigeria to the United States on Jan. 17, the senior administration official said. The family members have proved vital in getting Abdulmutallab to talk, he said -- indicating that it would have been counterproductive to interrogate him under military rules, as some have suggested.

The president is getting briefings on the interrogations of Abdulmutallab, the official said.

All three sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Officials are continuing to flesh out Abdulmutallab's contacts with radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, who allegedly met with the suspect before the bombing, one source said.

No plea deal between Justice Department lawyers and federal public defender Miriam Siefer is imminent, the sources said, but both sides began negotiating last week, as reported by The Washington Post.

If convicted, Abdulmutallab faces a virtual life sentence on six criminal charges, including using a plane as a weapon of mass destruction. In exchange for his renewed cooperation, authorities could recommend that a federal judge reduce any prison sentence Abdulmutallab might face, a common occurrence in the criminal justice system.

The best advice is to remain vigilant and to watch for unusual behavior and items that seem out of place.

Ominous Warnings About Al Qaeda's Latest Intentions

The British government has raised their terror alert level.

The threat level was raised from "substantial" — where it had stood since July to indicate a strong possibility of a terrorist attack — to "severe," meaning such an attack is considered highly likely.

In making the announcement, Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the raised security level means that Britain is heightening its vigilance. But he stressed that there was no intelligence suggesting an attack is imminent.

"The highest security alert is `critical,' and that means an attack is imminent, and we are not at that level," he said on British television.

Johnson declined to say what intelligence the change was based on, or whether the move was related to the failed Christmas bombing attempt, when U.S. authorities say a young Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear during a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Abdulmutallab, who allegedly had links to extremists based in Yemen, had studied as a university student in London.

Officials aren't saying specifically what caused them to increase the level, but it likely has to do with intel coming in regarding al Qaeda, including that which underwear bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab had told investigators. ABC News claims that Mutallab has provided information about who else was at the terror training camps he attended, and that al Qaeda may be trying to get female suicide bombers onto flights in an attempt to thwart profiling measures.

One official said at least two of them are believed to be connected to al Qaeda in Yemen, and may have a non-Arab appearance and be traveling on Western passports.

The threat was described as "current" but not imminent, said the official.

"They have trained women," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

Al Qaeda has always sought out the spectacular terror attack, and taking down another airplane would be a coup on their part. While they could just as easily go after the train system in Europe or subways here in the US with deadly consequences, they're still fixated on taking down airlines. We have to hope that we can gather sufficient intel, put it in the hands of those who can act on it in a timely fashion, and prevent these terrorists from carrying out their deadly plans.

Somalia Frees Suspect In Thwarted Bombing

Somali authorities have freed an individual who was caught trying to bring the very kinds of materials on board an aircraft that nearly brought down Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

A Somali court acquitted and released a suspect who tried to board a plane in Mogadishu in November with chemicals and a syringe - materials similar to those used in the attempted attack against a Detroit-bound airliner.

The Somali individual gets to slink back into the woodwork - hiding in the safe havens of Somalia's lawlessness while the US and other law enforcement and intel services are thwarted in gaining valuable information needed about Abdul Mutallab's attempt to bring down Flight 253. The court ruled that he didn't have the intent to commit a crime.

Somali Police Commissioner Gen. Ali Hassan Loyan said the court released the suspect on Dec. 12 after ruling that officials hadn't demonstrated he intended to commit a crime. The man, whose name has not been released, said the chemicals were to process camera film.

In light of the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound plane, Gen. Loyan said Somali authorities would collaborate with U.S. officials and share information and the confiscated materials.

"Somalia's federal government affirms that it is ready to double its cooperation with the countries in the world, particularly with America, for it is clear that the incident that happened in Mogadishu and the one that happened in a region in America are similar," Gen. Loyan told a news conference in the Somali capital.

U.S. officials on Wednesday learned about the early November incident at Mogadishu's international airport and began investigating for links between it and the Detroit case.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said U.S. investigators were working with Somali authorities, and linking the case to the Christmas attack "would be speculative at this point."

A Nairobi-based diplomat, though, said the incident has similarities to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound plane. The Somali was said to have a syringe, liquid and powdered chemicals -- tools similar to those used by the Nigerian suspect on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

If the two incidents are linked, then Somalia's actions to release the Somali individual was a colossal mistake. Moreover, the reasoning of the Somali court is just baffling given that police experts claimed that the materials taken from the Somali individual were sufficient to endanger the aircraft, though an expert said it was insufficient to take down the aircraft. So, bringing dangerous materials on board an aircraft was somehow insufficient to result in criminal charges and a conviction in a Somali court.

Meanwhile, other nations are bolstering their security protocols as a result of Mutallab's attack.

It is once again a reminder that we are only as safe as the weakest link in the security chain particularly as terrorists continue to probe our defenses and find our weaknesses.

Dropping the Ball

Last month, a Somali was arrested trying to bring a syringe and a powdered substance on board an aircraft. The scenario was frighteningly similar to the methods used by Abdul Mutallab on Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The Somali man — whose name has not yet been released — was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off. It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. A Somali police spokesman, Abdulahi Hassan Barise, said the suspect is in Somali custody.

"We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaida or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," said Barise.

A Nairobi-based diplomat said the incident in Somalia is similar to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in that the Somali man had a syringe, a bag of powdered chemicals and liquid — tools similar to those used in the Detroit attack. The diplomat spoke on condition he not be identified because he isn't authorized to release the information.

Multiple media outlets are also reporting that the CIA had intercepted signals of an impending attack.

Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen before Friday that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda there were talking about “a Nigerian” being prepared for a terrorist attack. While the information did not include a name, officials said it would have been evident had it been compared with information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit on Christmas Day.

The government also had more information about where Mr. Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his plans were.

Some of the information was partial or incomplete, and it was not obvious that it was connected, the official said, but in retrospect it now appears clear that had it all been examined together it would have pointed to the pending attack. The official said the administration was “increasingly confident” that Al Qaeda had a role in the attack, as the group’s Yemeni branch has publicly claimed.

Shortly after being briefed, Mr. Obama addressed reporters in his second public statement on the matter in two days, announcing that a review already had revealed a breakdown in the intelligence system that did not properly identify the suspect as a dangerous extremist who should have been prevented from flying to the United States.

“A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Mr. Obama said. He said he had ordered government agencies to give him a preliminary report on Thursday about what happened and added that he would “insist on accountability at every level,” although he did not elaborate.

Then, there's where al Qaeda is operating and continuing to recruit for jihad. That means looking more closely at Yemen and other failed states like Somalia.



UPDATE:
CNN makes it clear that the ball got dropped by the CIA who failed to circulate the information it had obtained to the necessary authorities, including DHS and the TSA, who were in a position to stop Mutallab from boarding.

UPDATE:
Reports claiming that Mutallab didn't have a passport when he boarded NW Air Flt. 253 are untrue.

The suspected terrorist who tried to blow up Northwest Flight 253 Christmas day did present a passport to authorities in Amsterdam before boarding the Detroit-bound plane, Holland's counter-terrorism agency said Wednesday.

Abdulmutallab arrived in Amsterdam on Friday from Lagos, Nigeria. After a layover of less than three hours, he passed through a security check at the gate in Amsterdam, including a hand baggage scan and a metal detector, officials said.

Abdulmutallab was carrying a valid Nigerian passport and had a valid U.S. visa, the Dutch said. His name did not appear on any Dutch list of terror suspects.

The problem is that his flight profile should have raised alarm bells - buying a 1-way ticket in Lagos for Nigeria to Detroit in cash; to say nothing of the warnings received by the CIA and Mutallab's own father contacting law enforcement to warn about his son's actions.

The Failure To Connect The Dots; Air Security Still Lagging

Harry Smith at CBS grills DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano who finally admits that they screwed up and where the bomber, Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, put on the TIDE list and not elevated to further scrutiny, managed to bring explosives sufficient to take down an aircraft on board but was thwarted only by an alert passenger.

The security system put in place after 9/11 and then after the Richard Reid shoe bomber case didn't thwart the attack; it was the Flight 93 Let's Roll mantra by passengers refusing to go quietly to their deaths that thwarted the attacks. The screening system failed. The failure by the bomber was due to a quick thinking passenger who risked his own life to stop the bomber from detonating what appeared to be a sufficient amount of explosive to take down Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

Further restrictions on what can be brought on board the planes, let alone whether a person can have bags in their possession during the last hour of the flight or that passengers will not be allowed to go to the restroom in the last hour of the flight will not prevent terrorism of this kind; the terrorist may simply try to blow up the plane after takeoff or at any point in the course of the flight.

It is merely to give the appearance of doing something about air safety. Actually taking action to thwart terrorism requires more stringent security protocols and more invasive methods that are all too likely to rankle civil libertarians and to impose further costs on flying. Technologies that could detect certain explosives aren't fully deployed around the world, and scanners that can literally see through the body aren't being deployed because of privacy concerns, even though they may have been able to detect the explosive underwear that Mutallab was wearing.

So, the two measures that have done the most to improve air security to date have nothing to do with the security at airports; it has everything to do with installing armored cockpit doors and passengers who aren't going to sit back and let hijackers or terrorists fulfill their plot aims.

UPDATE:
This isn't just a failure to connect the dots; it may now include providing al Qaeda with more dots. Two of those who were apparently involved in the planning of the attack on Northwest Air Flight 253 were previously detained at Guantanamo Bay, but were released to Saudi Arabia.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.

 So, once again, detainees released under the misbegotten idea that closing Guantanamo Bay is a good idea has turned out to be a stupendously bad one as detainees who were out of the fight were able to rejoin the jihad and plot, plan, and carry out attacks against the US and our interests around the world.

Christmas Day Airline Bomber Had Al Qaeda Links?

ABC News is reporting that the terrorist who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane to Detroit had apparently received a bomb laden pair of underwear from an al Qaeda bombmaker in Yemen.

The plot to blow up an American passenger jet over Detroit was organized and launched by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen who apparently sewed bomb materials into the suspect's underwear before sending him on his mission, federal authorities tell ABC News.

Investigators say the suspect had more than 80 grams of PETN, a compound related to nitro-glycerin used by the military. The so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, had only about 50 grams kin his failed attempt in 2001 to blow up a U.S.-bound jet. Yesterday's bomb failed because the detonator may have been too small or was not in "proper contact" with the explosive material, investigators told ABC News.

PETN is one of the big concerns for law enforcement since it is easily made with basic ingredients and there are videos showing exactly how these kinds of explosives can be made. It, along with TATP are two explosives that terrorists have repeatedly used to carry out their deadly attacks.

Why would a senior al Qaeda bombmaker send a guy like Mutallab on a mission like this? Well, given his background, he's from a middle class background who wouldn't likely arouse suspicions. He also had a visa to the US that was good through 2010. According to his father, he would appear to have the right religious extremist viewpoint to be a coreligionist with al Qaeda.

Officials are trying to corroborate Mutallab's story, but it's particularly worrisome that he was able to slip through security in both Nigeria and in Amsterdam for his flight on to the US. Mutallab's father was apparently concerned enough that he contacted US authorities who opened a file on his son:

Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name was not unknown to American authorities. His father, a prominent Nigerian banker, recently told officials at the United States Embassy in Nigeria that he was concerned about his son’s increasingly extremist religious views.

As a result of his father’s warning, federal authorities in Washington opened an investigative file and Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name ended up in the American intelligence community’s central repository of information on known or suspected international terrorists.

Members of Congress who were briefed Saturday by governmental officials also pointed to a Yemeni connection.

“The facts are still emerging, but there are strong suggestions of a Yemen-Al Qaeda connection and an intent to blow up the plane over U.S. airspace,” Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat who leads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said in a statement.

Yet, if his name ended up on the list of known or suspected international terrorists, how was he able to board the plane in the first place in Amsterdam? Well, he wasn't on the actual no-fly list:

The suspect’s name was inserted last month into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or Tide. About 550,000 individuals are registered in the database. A subset of that is the Terrorist Screening Data Base, or T.S.D.B., which has about 400,000.

By contrast, fewer than 4,000 names from the T.S.D.B. are on the “no-fly” list, and an additional 14,000 on a “selectee” list that calls for mandatory secondary screening, an Obama administration official said. At the time Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name was recorded in the Tide database in November, the official said, “there was insufficient derogatory information available” to warrant putting him in the T.S.D.B., no-fly or selectee lists, and so he was not on any watch list when he boarded the plane bound for Detroit.

President Obama ordered a full review of the law enforcement and intelligence databases related to the no-fly list to make sure the procedures and practices still make sense, a senior administration official said Saturday.

In other words, there are concerns that while intel services are tracking a variety of people, only a few have activities that are sufficiently known to the intel services to warrant no-fly status or closer scrutiny.

It may be that we need to conduct secondary screening on all individuals on the TIDE list or on the TSDB list, precisely because we can't quite be certain of their intentions any time they get on a plane.

At the same time, Mutallab claims that he contacted the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen through an online communication, though not with Anwar al Awlaki, who happened to be linked with the Fort Hood gunman, Malik Hasan.

Christmas Day Terror Plot Thwarted On Northwest Airlines Flight

Passengers helped thwart a terror attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew members from Amsterdam to Detroit as the plan was preparing to land. The terrorist, a Nigerian who claimed to be acting on orders of al Qaeda, apparently tried to ignite some kind of explosive, but an alert passenger jumped over a row of seats to stop the plot:

Travelers said they smelled smoke, saw a glow, and heard what sounded like firecrackers. At least one person climbed over others and jumped on the man, who officials say was trying to ignite an explosive device.

"It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase," said Peter Smith, a passenger from the Netherlands. "First there was a pop, and then (there) was smoke."

Smith said one passenger, sitting opposite the man, climbed over passengers, went across the aisle and tried to restrain the man. The heroic passenger appeared to have been burned.

Afterward, the suspect was taken to a front-row seat with his pants cut off and his legs burned. Multiple law enforcement officials also said the man appeared badly burned on his legs, indicating the explosive was strapped there. The components were apparently mixed in-flight and included a powdery substance, multiple law enforcement and counterterrorism officials said.

The White House said it believed it was an attempted act of terrorism and stricter security measures were quickly imposed on airline travel. Dutch anti-terrorism authorities said the U.S. has asked all airlines to take extra precautions on flights worldwide that are bound for the United States.

The incident was reminiscent of Richard Reid, who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes, but was subdued by other passengers.

The man has since been identified as Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23. According to federal documents, he is an engineering student at University College of London who was flying from Nigeria to the US for a religious seminar. British authorities are searching his residence in London, and British Airways has further restricted carry-on luggage to one piece per person.

US law enforcement and counterterrorism officials have to track down his whereabouts, and how he got from Nigeria to Amsterdam, along with who he contacted and how he acquired the materials needed to make the explosive device.

New York Congressman Peter King, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, was briefed by intelligence officials shortly after the plane landed.  "Well, some definite facts.  One is that he has al-Qaida connections. Secondly, that it was a fairly sophisticated device."

Mutallab, an engineering student who studied in Britain, told investigators he was acting on instructions from al-Qaida and got the explosive materials in Yemen.  Those claims have yet to be confirmed.  But Congressman King says there is plenty of reason to worry. 

"How he was able to get on in Nigeria, what happened in Amsterdam, which is a visa waiver country, how he was able to get through and make it this far with the devices he had, these are all issues that have to be resolved."

U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered security measures to be stepped up at all U.S. airports.  And security officials are encouraging passengers to be observant and report any suspicious activity.

 The explosive appears to be a mixture of powder and liquid that failed to properly detonate, and that's got law enforcement concerned over a new threat. Expect further restrictions on what is permissible to be carried onto airlines in the near future as the experts try to figure out the nature of the explosive that Mutallah attempted to use.

UPDATE:
It appears that US officials may have known that Mutallah had terror ties; and yet despite this they still approved a travel visa in 2008 that would be valid through 2010.

In the end, it was alert passengers who took matters into their own hands to thwart the terrorist on the Northwest Airlines flight, so while Congress will go ahead and carry out hearings in January about the terror incident, it remains the public at large remaining vigilant to thwart terror plots where they can.