 SAN'A, Yemen—For 10 days this summer, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab took language classes in this ancient city on the Arabian Peninsula. He lived in student housing, appearing to his fellow students to be devout, friendly and generally content. Then, he was gone. New details in the case of Mr. Abdulmutallab, charged with attempting to bring down Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253, have emerged suggesting that it was around this time that the young man met with the radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to a person familiar with intelligence shared among Arab states and a U.S. official.
The person familiar with Arab intelligence says Mr. Abdulmutallab met with a mysterious Saudi operative of al Qaeda. A few months later, on Christmas Day, he boarded the plane for Detroit, with 76 grams of explosives allegedly sewn into his underwear. Investigators in the U.S. and Yemen believe the meetings marked a critical turning point in Mr. Abdulmutallab's gradual transformation from pious Muslim to alleged terrorist. How and when his relationships were initially forged with al Qaeda and Mr. Awlaki, who has surfaced in multiple terror probes, is at the heart of the global scramble to trace Mr. Abdulmutallab's "radicalization"—and to determine how authorities could have missed the warning signs. Through most of his life, the Nigeria-born Mr. Abdulmutallab came off as a religious and inward young man, so opaque as to be virtually unknowable. He was intense and serious about Islam, but in a way that acquaintances judged to be within the mainstream. People familiar with the investigation say he began to quietly reach out to political extremists as a college student in London from 2005 to 2008, then apparently embedded more deeply with them as he hop-scotched around Africa and the Middle East. They say it was during his time in London that he was likely first exposed to Mr. Awlaki via the cleric's rabble-rousing anti-Western sermons on the Internet. He is believed to have reached out to the cleric at some point, but it couldn't be learned when that first contact was attempted or whether Mr. Awlaki responded. This account of Mr. Abdulmutallab's childhood and journey over the past few years is based on several dozen interviews with friends and associates, as well as government officials examining his movements in the U.S., Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Abdulmutallab, 23, is the son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, recently retired chairman of First Bank of Nigeria PLC and one of the country's most prominent businessmen. People who encountered Mr. Abdulmutallab at various stages of his life describe him as a young man who studied Islam, prayed frequently and radiated loneliness. As a boy in Kaduna, Nigera, Mr. Abdulmutallab earned the nickname "ustaz," or "scholarly man." He steered clear of the country-club parties and polo matches frequented by other wealthy kids. He was "a nice boy who had no friends," recalls Musa Umar Dumawa, director of the Islamic school Mr. Abdulmutallab attended in Kaduna. Yet in Internet postings attributed to him as a teenager, he also fretted about his isolation: "Either people do not want to get close to me as they go partying and stuff while I don't, or they are bad people who befriend me and influence me to do bad things." From childhood on, Mr. Abdulmutallab was exposed to circumstances that could have shaped his political views. Kaduna was home to growing anti-Western sentiment among Muslims, fueled in part by clashes with Christians that erupted in 2000, when the local governor considered imposing Sharia, or Islamic law. After a few years at boarding school in Togo, Mr. Abdulmutallab in 2004 ventured to Yemen, where a growing number of Islamic extremists have been relocating from Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. From fall 2004 to spring 2005, he studied at the San'a Institute for Arabic Language, according to Mohammed Al-Anisi, the institute's director. "He knew how to read and write in Arabic because he had learned to read the Quran being a Muslim, but his speaking abilities were very limited," recalls Mr. Anisi. Mr. Abdulmutallab began his year in San'a shortly after Mr. Awlaki, the radical cleric, returned to the city after 14 years in the U.S. and London. While Mr. Abdulmutallab was studying Arabic in San'a's Old City, Mr. Awlaki was making a name for himself as a vibrant newpreacher. He gave regular Friday sermons at the Yehya al-Ghader mosque on the city's Western periphery. He lectured at the Al Iman University, founded by Sheikh Abdel Majeed Zindani in 1995, who both the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.N. Security Council have named as an affiliate of al Qaeda. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Abdulmutallab ever attended Mr. Awlaki's sermons or lectures or met the cleric during this period. Mr. Abdulmutallab harbored dreams of studying engineering in the U.S. at Stanford University or the California Institute of Technology, but in the fall of 2005, he enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at University College London. Internet postings from early 2005 that appear to have been written by Mr. Abdulmutallab show a craving for the fellowship of a student Islamic society. At UCL, he quickly hooked up with the university's Islamic group. There, Mr. Abdulmutallab was often seen dressed in traditional white robe and skull cap. He arrived at class on his own, says Derek Wong, a fellow student. Others recall he was friendly but declined invitations to drink or socialize. Michael Kangawa, a student, says Mr. Abdulmutallab invited him to talks on Islam, none of which "sounded sinister in the slightest." Through the UCL Islamic Society, for which he served as president in 2006 and 2007, Mr. Abdulmutallab became involved in politics. One former student recalls that in the summer of 2006 Mr. Abdulmutallab solicited signatures for a petition against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and against Western support for Israel. "He was very passionate and very articulate," this person says. Qasim Fariq, Mr. Abdulmutallab's predecessor as the society's president, says he saw no signs of a budding militant. "If he'd had radical views, that would have raised a question mark about his suitability to be president," says Mr. Fariq. "He never expressed any extremist inclinations." U.K. intelligence agencies, now combing through his history, say that Mr. Abdulmutallab was flirting with a more radical form of Islam. While a student, people familiar with the matter say, he made contact with several extremists who were being monitored by the security services. Yet security agencies have so far found no evidence that he was contemplating violence while in the U.K. or posed a threat to national security. "It looks pretty aspirational, and it doesn't look as if he got particularly far," a British official says. While in the U.K., he gave the impression of "a young guy who's trying to start out on a journey.... We see many people who start out on that journey and very few of them reach the point where they are willing to blow up people on tube trains." Mr. Abdulmutallab's movements became harder to track after he graduated from UCL in June 2008. He appears to have cut himself off from college acquaintances. "In December, I sent him an instant message when I saw he was online, but he never replied," says Mr. Fariq. "I was surprised he'd cut off contact so abruptly." Mr. Abdulmutallab bounced around the world. His application to obtain a visa to travel to the U.S. raised no red flags, and he visited Houston—home to an estimated 100,000 Nigerian immigrants—in August 2008. He stayed for about two weeks, attending an Islamic seminar run by a nonprofit educational group called the Al Maghrib Institute and staying at a Sheraton hotel on the outskirts of downtown. In October, he turned up in Nigeria. There, he approached Abdulkareem Durosinlorun, the director of a small Islamic primary school in Kaduna, with a proposal to teach a course on Prophetic medicine, the ways of healing according to the Prophet Muhammad. "He spoke about combating demons of power, or money," says Bilquees Abdul Azees, who attended the two-day course. "His solution was that if you have faith in Allah, you will persevere." In January 2009, Mr. Abdulmutallab arrived in Dubai with his father, according to a person familiar with intelligence shared between Arab governments investigating the Nigerian's movements. He applied for a student visa and enrolled at University of Wollongong, the Dubai-based campus of the Australian institute, to pursue a degree in international business, which involves courses in finance, accounting and human resources. He lived in student housing, played basketball on the side, and struck fellow students and faculty as diligent and quiet. University President Robert J. Whelan says Mr. Abdulmutallab was a "hard-working" student who scored "above-average" grades. In April 2009, he applied for a visa to attend an eight-day course provided by Discovery Life Coaching based in east London. The U.K. Border Agency refused the application because Discovery Life didn't hold valid accreditation as an educational institution and wasn't eligible to sponsor international students in Britain. Attempts to find a company called Discovery Life in that area were unsuccessful. He completed only two semesters in Dubai, failing to pay his fees for what would have been his third and final semester before graduating. During his final days in Dubai in early August, he sent his father an SMS text saying he was headed to Yemen to study Arabic, according to the person familiar with Arab intelligence sharing. He left the country Aug. 4 "and never showed up again" in Dubai, this person said. Near the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began Aug. 22, Mr. Abdulmutallab returned to the language institute in Yemen where he had studied as a teenager. Mr. Anisi, the institute's director, says the young man appeared more serious, withdrawn and pious than the student who had left four years earlier. People who were there say he stayed no more than 10 days before leaving. "He said it was Ramadan and he wanted to focus on praying," said one student. Matthew Salmon, a 27-year-old Canadian student, lived next door to Mr. Abdulmutallab in this period. They talked about religion, with Mr. Abdulmutallab gently proselytizing and focusing on Quranic verses that spoke of tolerance for Christians and Jews. "More than anything else, he seemed like someone who had found some peace in the religion he subscribed to. ... He was honest, he was happy, and there was absolutely no malice in the guy that I could detect." In early September, Mr. Salmon had a final conversation with him. "I asked him how long he planned on staying in Yemen, and he said a month or two depending on how long the money held up and how his studying progressed. The next day he was gone, his room was empty and that was the end of it." Yemeni officials say Mr. Abdulmutallab left San'a and traveled to the rugged tribal-controlled southern province of Shabwa, where al Qaeda has a strong presence and where Mr. Awlaki has lived at least the past two years. There, Mr. Abdulmutallab met with al Qaeda leaders in Yemen and "likely" Mr. Awlaki, according to Yemen's government. The person familiar with intelligence sharing among Arab states and a U.S. official say Mr. Abdulmutallab met face-to-face with Mr. Awlaki, but it's unclear where or when. This person says Mr. Abdulmutallab befriended an al Qaeda operative while attending a mosque in downtownSan'a. A U.S. security official says the mosque has been frequented by al Qaeda members. "Slowly, slowly, he started liking them, and he got their trust," this person said of Mr. Abdulmutallab. His precise itinerary after leaving Yemen is in dispute. What is known is that he arrived in Ghana in early December, staying about two weeks and buying an airline ticket for travel later in the month, according to the Ghana government. On Dec. 24, he flew to Lagos and proceeded to Amsterdam after a brief stopover. On Dec. 25, he boarded Flight 253 in Amsterdam, headed for Detroit. WSJ 
 A 66-YEAR-OLD Frenchman has been jailed in Abu Dhabi after making a bomb joke on a plane, the French foreign ministry said today. Pensioner Jean-Louis Lioret, who was flying to Bangkok from Paris on Etihad Airways, was arrested after cabin crew overheard him using the word bomb in an exchange with his co-passenger, his brother Michel Lioret said. During a stopover at Abu Dhabi, Lioret's neighbour asked him to keep a packet on the other seat next to him as it was empty. Lioret's jocular "I hope it's not a bomb" was overheard and sent off alarm bells. He was taken off the plane and grilled by police and then jailed. He was also informed that the packet contained cigarettes and not a bomb. The French foreign ministry said it was informed of the arrest and was following the case closely. The Australian
 IS little Mikey really a terrorist? That is the question America is asking after it emerged that the eight-year-old Cub Scout from New Jersey is frisked every time he flies because his name is on a US terror watchlist.
Michael "Mikey" Hicks, whose father is a US Navy veteran and mother a photojournalist who has flown with the US vice-president, has been the target of extra security measures at airports since he was 2.
"Why would a kid be a terrorist?" he asks. Michael is not on the US Government's "no-fly" list of 2,500 people considered too dangerous to be allowed into the air. However, his name appears to be among, or to closely match, one of the 13,500 on the "selectee" list who are singled out for extra airport security. His parents first learnt of his status when they could not get him a seat for a flight to Florida because, as an airline official explained, he was "on the list". He was patted down for the first time aged 2 as he passed through Newark airport in New Jersey. Michael has been asked to see the supervisor whenever he checks in for a flight. On a recent trip to the Bahamas he was frisked on the way out and searched more aggressively on the return flight. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is charged with trying to explode a bomb, was identified as a possible problem when his father in Nigeria alerted the US Embassy that he had expressed extreme views before disappearing. The US Government added Mr Abdulmutallab to the 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database. But his name was not added to the "no-fly" list or the "selectee" list, so he was able to get on a US-bound plane without attracting extra attention. Hundreds of people have been added to these lists since the breakdown was identified. The United States, though, is deeply reluctant to start profiling passengers by singling out Muslims.
Instead the Obama Administration has taken an intermediate step by ordering full-body pat-downs for all US-bound passengers from Nigeria and 13 other countries where the US suspects that terrorists operate. On its website, the Transportation Security Administration, which is responsible for airport security, insists that no eight-year-old boy is on the "no-fly" list. "Airlines can and should automatically deselect any eight-year-olds out there that appear to be on a watchlist," it says. "Whether you're 8 or 80 the most common occurrence is name confusion and individuals are told they are on the no-fly list when, in fact, they are not." Michael's mother, Najlah Feanny Hicks, has enlisted the help of her congressman to get the listing removed. "You could have seen that he was 2; that he was 3, 4 or 5. Now it's scary because he's 8. What happens when he is 16?" she asked on the television channel CBS2. The Australian
 A noted Saudi preacher has called on Arabs to stop flying to the United States, in protest of “enhanced screening” procedures aimed at catching terrorists, the Dubai business website Zawya.com reported. Muslim preacher Sheikh Sulaiman al Dowaish has urged Saudi authorities to consider the travel ban following an announcement by the United States that “enhanced screening" measures will be put into place for passengers from 14 countries, including Saudi Arabia. The extra steps were taken after last month’s attempt by a Nigerian Muslim to detonate a bomb on board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry has asked the Obama administration for clarifications regarding the new security measures.
Officials said the oil-rich kingdom would not tolerate security procedures that tarnish the honor and dignity of Saudis. The website noted that 22,000 students from Saudi Arabia are learning at American universities Saudi security researcher Sultan Al Anqari blasted the new U.S. regulation, telling GulfNews.com that the Obama government is resorting to a form of political blackmail against Saudi Arabia because of the country’s anti-Israeli policies. "It is part of a collective punishment against the Saudis, who are also victims of the wrong doing of some deviant people," he said. INN
 The liberal milieu and mainstream media are baffled: What could have possibly led the 23-year-old Nigerian boy Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to attempt jihadi suicide on a passenger plane? How could such a nice, educated Islamic boy, who grew up in a rich and prosperous family, have come under the “radical” and “extreme” influences that set him on his violent course? It’s just all so mysterious. It’s so mysterious that the news anchors on CNN continue to incredulously ask each other and their guests these questions — back and forth, over and over again, in a cyclical circus that has no end and that never produces the most obvious answer staring any sensible person right in the face.
In the liberal imagination, there is just this “extremist ideology” out there somewhere and somehow this unfortunate Muslim boy fell under its spell, but no one can be exactly sure how or why it happened. All one can be sure of is that an adversarial culture or ideology must not be blamed and that America, somewhere, somehow, must definitely be at fault. And so, when it comes to the liberal left trying to digest Abdulmutallab and his suicidal quest, perplexed dismay becomes a much safer hiding place than honesty, because the basic truth threatens the very survival of the liberal faith.
For the liberal to accept the evident reason why Abdulmutallab set off on his suicide odyssey would necessitate him having to completely shed himself of his entire worldview and personal identity.
The much easier route, therefore, is to keep oneself confused and to stay focused on how American capitalism and imperialism must have surely had something to do with it — even though, as is the case with the cause of Islamic terror itself, these factors are so obviously not involved in Abdulmutallab’s suicidal and murderous yearnings (i.e., Abdulmutallab comes from a privileged, wealthy, and educated life, etc.). What the lib-left milieu simply can’t digest is what Islamic terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab themselves insist motivated them. And these are things like, you know, reading certain religious texts and following a certain religion’s teachings. They are things, sort of like, well, following Islam and reading the Koran and stuff like that. When all is said and done, the true reasons why Abdulmutallab embarked on his murderous mission of suicide are completely understandable — and only to be expected — in the context of his Islamic odyssey. And Abdulmutallab himself clearly points to the influence of his religion in his own personal writings on the internet. To continue reading this article, click here. FPM
 The attempted bombing of Delta/Northwest 253 on Christmas Day was not the first from the Islamic terrorists nor will it be the last. Since I am a pilot, I have had people ask what can a passenger do onboard an airplane to help thwart a terrorist attack. Having personal experience with a few events myself, as well as reading articles and hearing stories from other crewmembers, I can give you some information which might assist you in dealing with a suspicious passenger or situation.
The first thing to realize is that there are a few different scenarios which the terrorists could be using on your particular flight. (Also realize that it could happen on any flight, not just one originating from a non U.S. location.)
Options include testing TSA and law enforcement personnel, testing passengers and crewmembers, observation, dry run/practice, and actual execution of an attack. Of course it is hard to differentiate which scenario is playing out until after your flight lands, but it might assist you in recognizing the threat and knowing how serious your reaction should be if you know all of the options. In most of these instances, their job is to also scare you.
Terrorists create terror. If you stop flying, they win. So be pro-active. Maybe something you do will cause them to call off the attack.
As a passenger you must be observant and vigilant. Most often someone notices some unusual activity or behavior. It doesn’t have to be just a person either. Suspicious bags, luggage, packages, notes, pillows, and electronic devices have been found on planes. One of the biggest advantages you have is the ability to profile. TSA refuses to do the obvious thanks to political correctness.
Everyone knows who is committing these attacks -- Muslim, Middle-Eastern men between 18 and 40. Maybe al Qaeda is trying to recruit others than don’t fit this profile but it sure fits the mold right now.
Some things to look for: groups or pairs of men, a passenger talking to themselves, speaking Arabic, watching crewmembers (this is different than looking), staring at the cockpit door, long stays or multiple trips to the lavatory, reading a book but not turning any pages, nervousness, being unusual by trying to fit in, taking pictures/videos, not making eye contact.
When you are at the boarding area and on the plane if you notice a suspicious passenger, look for others. How many? If it is one or two then they could be planning on bombing the aircraft or just making observations of crew procedures. 6 or more? Then this cell’s objective would be hijacking the plane by brute force. Also remember that there are sleepers that try to blend in with the other passengers and could be very hard to notice.
A website reports a well-dressed man in custody that was also a passenger on Delta Flight 253. After an incident, your entire plane might be delayed for security and they will treat everyone as suspects. Also expect the government and airline to try to cover up parts or all of an event.
A recent example of a possible test occurred on Nov 17 with an Airtran flight from Atlanta to Houston. Eleven Muslim men got on the plane and caused a big disturbance and ended with passengers assisting the flight attendants in the commotion. TSA was called, they took the men off, talked to them, and put them back on.
The crewmembers walked off the plane refusing to fly it, and then passengers walked off as well. The terrorists tested the TSA and passengers but probably also threatened lawsuits to the government and Airtran.
This could be setting up a later mission with hopes the TSA and airline would be afraid to take them off the plane. Just like the Delta flight, the final layer of security, the crewmembers and passengers, are the ones who might have prevented an attack, nothing the government did was successful.
 Jim Hoft Here comes another court fiasco thanks to Barack Obama and Eric Holder.
Panty bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab appeared in court today. Under President Obama’s plan he may even get a life sentence for trying to blow a jetliner out of the sky.
Breitbart reported: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was tackled by a passenger on board a packed U.S. jetliner on Christmas as flames shot from his clothes.
President Barack Obama calls him a “suspected terrorist.” And an al-Qaida branch has taken responsibility. The young Nigerian man arrived at federal court in Detroit Friday for his arraignment on charges that he failed to detonate a chemical-laden explosive on the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight. Experts say that with so much evidence stacked against Abdulmutallab, his defense team is left with few options as the case moves forward. Attorneys outside the case say the 23-year-old’s lawyers can challenge incriminating statements to the FBI, seek a mental-health exam for Abdulmutallab—and seriously consider a plea deal. “This is not a case of mistaken identity or a whodunit. For the defense, it’s damage control,” said Joseph Niskar, a defense lawyer who was involved in a 2001 terrorism case in Detroit that fell apart for the government. The Grand Jury indicted him today.
TVNZ reported: A grand jury in Michigan indicted him on six counts for the failed bombing, including attempted murder of the other 289 passengers and crew aboard the plane, and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The bomb, concealed in his clothing, contained the high explosive Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) and Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP), among other ingredients, and it was designed for Abdulmutallab to detonate it at a time of his choosing, the indictment said. Freep.com lists the charges against the Nigerian terrorist. UPDATE: The panty bomber today pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to explode flight 253 in the air above Detroit on Christmas Day. With thanks to Gateway Pundit
 Editor's note: Steven Emerson is the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, one of the largest archival storehouses of open source intelligence on radical Islamic networks, and the author or co-author of six books on terrorism and national security. (CNN) -- In the wake of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, security experts, political commentators and the media have been asking one question: How can the United States prevent terrorists from smuggling homemade bombs through security? The most frequent answer has been full body scanners, a developing technology used in a handful of airports around the world. Although these scanners may be effective, they are at best the right answer to the wrong question. The question that law enforcement and security professionals must ask is how to prevent the terrorists themselves from getting on the airplane. Once we focus our attention on individual terrorists rather than their potential weapons, one fact is immediately clear: We must completely change the way we go about airport security and counterterrorism in general. The procedures are both inadequate and ineffective.
The current random searches do only a minimum to improve security. Nothing is more unproductive than searching an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair from Sweden or a 3-year-old child simply because she or he was the 10th person in line. Quite simply, the system has failed and must be revamped. Recognizing existing deficiencies, on Monday the Transportation Safety Administration announced it has taken the first step toward implementing a revised screening process for airline passengers. TSA will mandate that "every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening." This is a step in the right direction. But more should be done. Instead of a system akin to searching for a needle in a haystack while blindfolded, the Transportation Security Administration and the intelligence community should institute a system of "smart screening." Such a revised screening process would consider a host of factors in determining whether someone is a potential security threat. Among the considerations would be: behavioral signs; appearance; itinerary and travel history; appearance on watch lists; known connections to radical organizations or individuals; and yes, ethnicity and religious identity. Recognizing that the inclusion of ethnicity and religious characteristics in this list may be unsettling, it simply cannot be ignored that the overwhelmingly large majority of terrorist attacks undertaken over the past decade were committed by Islamic fundamentalists. Consequently, to ignore it as a factor -- as does current policy -- could have devastating effects. The procedures are both inadequate and ineffective. The current random searches do only a minimum to improve security. Any characteristic that can help us identify followers of radical Islam would be critical to determining who should be denied a visa, who should be put on the no-fly list and who should be subjected to a secondary inspection at the airport. One point worth mentioning is that a proposal for "smart screening" is not a call for a ban on Muslims flying on planes, nor is it an attempt to stop every person with Arab features and put them on a watch list. Rather than an accusation of guilt, it is simply an additional investigative tool that will allow law enforcement officials to effectively and efficiently marshal their resources toward a known threat, that posed by violent adherents of radical Islamic theology. Screeners and officials of intelligence agencies need as much information as possible to make decisions. To ban the use of critically relevant criteria in preventing catastrophic acts of terrorism, a policy in effect today, is to deny intelligence officials all the tools they need to make critical decisions. Law enforcement has done criminal profiling for decades and recognizes it as an invaluable tool. If a child is raped, the first suspects logically are pedophiles. Skeptical that "smart screening" will be effective? Mohammad al-Qatani, the intended 20th hijacker from the September 11 attacks, was stopped in Orlando, Florida, in 2001 because of profiling. It must be conceded that this proposal may not be 100 percent effective. No system ever will be. However, as terrorist groups consistently demonstrate their adaptability, one thing that has remained relatively constant is the pool of willing and able recruits. If some of the most well-trained and effective terrorists cannot carry out their mission because of profiling, that makes the likelihood of a successful terrorist attack that much slimmer. The new operatives may be less well-trained and hence less deadly. What they will undoubtedly have in common with their more experienced brethren, regardless of their ethnicity or nationality, will be an adherence to radical Islam. Rather than calling for an all-encompassing program where all followers of Islam would be swept up in some sort of dragnet, law enforcement officials should be provided with all of the tools necessary to prevent acts of terrorism, including the ability to consider the potential that an individual getting on an airplane has been radicalized. Race and ethnicity should never be sole criteria in evaluating threats. Rather I am calling for consideration of such criteria only in addition to many other factors. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Steven Emerson. IPT
 THE man who disrupted a flight as it was leaving Miami by saying he wanted "to kill all the Jews" has been charged with threats against a public servant. He's also been charged with disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest without violence, NBC Miami reported today. Passenger Mansour Mohammad Asad said "I'm a Palestinian and want to kill all the Jews," and had to be removed by officers from the plane, according to police reports Northwest Airlines Flight 2485 returned to the gate after Asad's disruption, where he and three companions were taken into custody by officers. The three other men have since been released. It was reported that Asad, 43, struggled during his removal and had to be tasered. He is said to have threatened officers, used racial slurs, and was reportedly chanting in a foreign language. After the inccident, the Transportation Security Administration released a statement saying, "While Northwest Airlines Flight 2485 taxied prior to departure from Miami International Airport (MIA), a passenger was heard making inappropriate remarks and acting disruptively. Local law enforcement and TSA met the aircraft upon its return and all passengers were deplaned. "The passenger and three travel companions are being questioned by Miami-Dade County police. The aircraft, bound for Detroit Wayne County International Airport (DTW), was swept with negative results and has been cleared for departure." The Australian
 My dire New Year prediction is that Islamic terrorists may well succeed this year in blowing up a civilian airliner. They have already twice proved that suicide bombers can get through security. And those are only the successful security bypasses that we know about. Who knows how many other potential terrorists, who have been tasked to test our system, have made it through? For all we know, the Christmas Day “failure” was also a test, at least in part—a test that included the potential for catastrophic success, but a test designed to probe weaknesses in our airline security system.
Only ten days later, another person got past security at Newark Airport and was never found.
Who knows how many other people have simply managed to walk around the metal detectors or through the security exit. I myself saw a man run passed security at Newark Airport several years ago. When I notified security, their response was to search my briefcase and nearly make me miss my flight. There was no search for the security evader and no shutdown of the concourse. Airport security in many parts of the world is a cruel joke. Worse, it is an invitation to terrorism. In many international airports, security is no better than in the least secure country from which any flyer begins his flight. Once in the secure area of some airports, there are no further checks when boarding a second flight. There must be security checks at every gate, not merely at the entrance to the general boarding area. Otherwise, passengers whose flights begin at low security airports can board planes without going through reasonable security. Nor have we learned enough from the near successes of the shoe and underwear bombers. In both cases, we should have acted as if they had succeeded. That they did not had absolutely nothing to do with our security, but rather with a factor over which the would-be terrorists had complete control, namely improving the effectiveness of their explosive triggers. Imagine what the reaction would have been if hundreds of Detroit-bound passengers had been murdered. That is what the reaction should now be to this near-catastrophe. We must adopt a multi-tiered approach to airline security. Frequent flyers who pose no security threat should be eligible for a non-transferable telemetric security card that is keyed into their retina for near foolproof identification.
They could quickly pass through metal and explosives detection. Other fliers can opt for increased security or increased privacy. Those who opt for increased security would be subjected to intrusive scanning, without a metal box protecting their private parts. After all, it was the private parts that were the location of the most recent explosives. If you are too prudish to have your private parts scanned, then opt for privacy. In that case, you have to come to airport three hours early and be subjected to a thorough external pat down and a lengthy sit-down interview. The time has come to take airline security seriously. We must also upgrade security in railroad and bus terminals, but Al Qaeda’s obsession with airlines should influence our priorities.
Those civil libertarians who claim that increasing security will not work are simply lying. It will work, though not perfectly, and it will also diminish privacy and civil liberties, though not significantly. Life is composed of tradeoffs. Those civil libertarians who deny that there are tradeoffs are serving neither the interests of civil liberties nor of truth. Among the most important civil liberty is our ability to travel without excessive fear of terrorism, and without excessive intrusion into our privacy. We must increase the quality and training of the security personnel at the airports. It should become a job for retired and experienced law enforcement officials. It should pay well and it should be subject to rigorous testing. Security “testers” should be using every available tactic to try to evade security. Those in charge of protecting us should be graded by their ability to spot terrorist threats. There must be more searching interviews of travelers who do not opt for the security card or the scanning. There is nothing wrong with profiling, so long as it does not lump together all members of a particular race, religion or ethnicity. Profiling, based on a wide variety of characteristics that are directly associated with the risk of terrorism, is a good thing. So is “negative profiling”—that is, excluding certain categories of travelers from super-scrutiny based on their obvious non-involvement in terrorism. Finally, we must have air marshals on every flight. This will be expensive, but nobody ever said that safe travel coupled with reasonable privacy would be cheap. We will implement all of these proposals—and more intrusive ones—as soon as the first plane is blown out of the sky and hundreds of innocent travelers are murdered. Why not do it now, before a preventable tragedy occurs? FPM
 BARACK Obama angrily revealed today that US intelligence services had enough information to disrupt the Christmas Day airliner attack but had failed to connect those dots. The intelligence failures were deeper than first thought, Mr Obama said as he demanded action after meeting US intelligence chiefs and top national security aides. “It is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analysed or fully leveraged,” Mr Obama said in a terse televised statement after the meeting at the White House. “That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it.” Mr Obama said two investigations into the botched plot to blow up a Northwest plane showed US intelligence missed other “red flags” as well as the already revealed fact that the top suspect was an extremist who had traveled to Yemen. He said US intelligence knew that Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula wanted to strike not only US targets in Yemen but in the United States itself. “In other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. “When a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day, the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way. “It's my responsibility to find out why, and to correct that failure so that we can prevent such attacks in the future.” The Australian
 On Christmas Day a brave Dutchman, Jasper Schuringa, played a very big role in preventing yet another terrorist triumph. He was able to subdue the young Islamist Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and stop him from murdering a plane-load of people and then getting his virgins, raisins, or whatever these brain-washed Islamists think is waiting for them in Paradise.
Now the airlines of the world have to think hard about what they can do, yet again, to keep the airlines safe.
But can they? Christopher Hitchens doubts it, and wonders why the majority of us have to endure these basically useless procedures. People who follow the activities of Islamists worldwide would not have been at all surprised.
Thwarted terror plots and Islamist Militants' incidents are almost daily occurrences. The only surprises are the out-of-the-box methods that are constantly updated. It seems these people have nothing better to do than figure out new ways of killing people they hate and disagree with!
What a "noble goal" in life that must be!
This is a global problem yet the leaders of the world simply don't want to know about it, let alone deal with it effectively.
Yes, there is a river in Egypt called "Denial".
Another fact often overlooked is that these attempts at mass murder do not only occur in the west, but in many Islamic countries. Pakistan is a good example of this. Muslim on Muslim murder. And of course who can forget the beheadings by the Taliban.
In 2009 there was quite a string of such plots and incidents and they have been well-documented by those who follow these issues.
It is indeed astonishing that people, Moderate Muslims and non-Muslims alike, do not protest in front of their respective government agencies constantly and say "enough already!"
It is quite unbelievable. Is it fear? Political Correctness? Apathy? Ignorance? All of these and maybe more? Why should any civilized person have to put up with any form of medieval behavior in the twenty-first century?
Mention must also be made here of the "gifts" bestowed on Israel and the rest of the world by Jimmy Carter. His apology for his comments about Israel, and his role in adding to the global jihad should not be underestimated.
It is as if they are totally ignorant of what is actually happening, and ignorant of the fact that not only the Israelis, but also the Egyptians control the crossings to Gaza. It is not just ignorance. It is deceit, and it is affecting many people who live in the Middle East: Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.
But I forget: Gaza is a fashionable cause, and Israel, that tiny strip of democratic land in an ocean of Islamic theocracies and dictatorships, is the cause of ALL the problems in the world - yep,,sure it is! All those "occupied territories"..err.."disputed territories" are the root cause of it all!!
And please dismiss from your mind the thousands of rockets that were launched into Israel which eventually lead to the Gaza war and the infamous Goldstone Report. I am not trying to demean the suffering of the Palestinians, especially the Gazans, who, under Hamas have indeed suffered, yet most of this is due to their leaders who are obsessed with maintaining power, accumulating wealth, and are totally disinterested in the welfare of their citizens.
Corruption is king. Teach your children to hate. Get money for weapons from the West and build almost NO infrastructure. Make sure the United Nations helps you all the way, and perpetuates this ridiculous situation. Can't have a bunch of UN employees out of a job, can we?
Yesterday I read that New Zealand is protesting an Israeli tennis player, Shahar Peer. This is not this first instance of "Tennis Jihad". It has happened in Sweden too.
Is it not strange that two western democracies allow politics to interfere with a sporting event in this day and age? Am I being naive? Are all sporting events tied to politics like they were in Hitler's time? They shouldn't be. Is history repeating itself? .
This is the disconnect: every day we hear of Islamist terrorism all over the world. No one says a word; no one protests, no one minds being patted down and removing their shoes at airports.
People of all races and creeds everywhere are threatened by radical Islamist extremists who are willing to kill and die in the name of their belief system. (I hesitate to call it a religion).
Blame must also go to the left-wing post-modernists who ably support them in the name of political correctness and self-loathing.
But one Israeli tennis player in New Zealand, and one in Sweden, cause demonstrations. These two countries, fine examples of Western liberal democracies, should hang their heads in shame.
This situation is very hard to comprehend.
"You can't be serious!" Indeed, Mr McEnroe!
 As hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London's Heathrow airport in 1986 comes to mind. It consisted of an El Al security agent quizzing Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to "get rid of the thing," he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in "the Holy Land". He also insisted on their travelling separately. Murphy, later described by the prosecutor as a "simple, unsophisticated Irish lass and a Catholic," accepted unquestioningly Hindawi's arrangements for her to fly to Israel on El Al on April 17.
She also accepted a wheeled suitcase with a false bottom containing nearly 2kg of Semtex, a powerful plastic explosive, and she agreed to be coached by him to answer questions posed by airport security. "What is the purpose of your trip to Israel?" Recalling Hindawi's instructions, Murphy answered, "For a vacation." "Are you married, Miss Murphy?" "No." "Travelling alone?" "Yes." "Is this your first trip abroad?" "Yes." "Do you have relatives in Israel?" "No." "Are you going to meet someone in Israel?" "No. "Has your vacation been planned for a long time?" "No." "Where will you stay while you're in Israel?" "The Tel Aviv Hilton." "How much money do you have with you?" "Fifty pounds." The Hilton at that time costing at least pound stg. 70 a night, he asked: "Do you have a credit card?" "Oh, yes," she replied, showing him an ID for cashing cheques. That did it, and the agent sent her bag for additional inspection, where the bombing apparatus was discovered. Had El Al followed the usual Western security procedures, 375 lives would surely have been lost somewhere over Austria. The bombing plot came to light, in other words, through a non-technical intervention, relying on conversation, perception, common sense, and (yes) profiling. The agent focused on the passenger, not the weaponry. Israeli counter-terrorism takes passengers' identities into account; accordingly, Arabs endure an especially tough inspection. "In Israel, security comes first," David Harris of the American Jewish Committee explains. Obvious as this sounds, over-confidence, political correctness, and legal liability render such an approach impossible anywhere else in the West. In the US, for example, one month after 9/11, the Department of Transportation issued guidelines forbidding its personnel from generalising "about the propensity of members of any racial, ethnic, religious, or national origin group to engage in unlawful activity." (Wear a hijab, I semi-jokingly advise women wanting to avoid secondary screening at airport security.) Worse yet, consider the panicky Mickey-Mouse and embarrassing steps the US Transportation Security Administration implemented hours after the Detroit bombing attempt: no crew announcements "concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks," and disabling all passenger communications services. During a flight's final hour, passengers may not stand up, access carry-on baggage, nor "have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap". Some crews went yet further, keeping cabin lights on throughout the night while turning off the in-flight entertainment, prohibiting all electronic devices, and, during the final hour, requiring passengers to keep hands visible and neither eat nor drink. Things got so bad, the Associated Press reports, "A demand by one flight attendant that no one could read anything elicited gasps of disbelief and howls of laughter." Widely criticised for these Clousseau-like measures, TSA eventually decided to add "enhanced screening" for travellers passing through or originating from 14 "countries of interest" as though one's choice of departure airport indicates a propensity for suicide bombing. The TSA engages in "security theatre" bumbling pretend-steps that treat all passengers equally rather than risk offending anyone by focusing, say, on religion. The alternative approach is Israelification, defined by Toronto's Star newspaper as "a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death". Which do we want, theatrics or safety? Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org ) director of the Middle East Forum and Taube fellow at the Hoover Institution, has super-elite status at two airlines. The Australian
 A JOURNALIST sacked from a leading Arab news channel says she was dumped for following up Australian media reports stemming from a near miss involving an Emirates Airlines jet at Melbourne airport last year. American journalist Courtney Radsch wrote a report that mentioned the incident -- in which an Emirates jet almost failed to take off due to incorrect payload data -- and subsequent safety concerns for Al Arabiya's English site. Her article drew on a Sunday Herald Sun story revealing that Emirates pilots complained about fatigue to air safety authorities months before the near disaster. Radsch, who was the associate editor of the site, said she immediately came under internal pressure from management at the Dubai-based channel to withdraw the article. "One of the heads of the channel came over and said that this article was causing problems and it needed to be taken down," she said. "I said to them: `There is supposed to be a separation between editorial and business' and they kind of laughed it off," she said. "In the end my colleagues were urging me to take the story off. It wasn't worth going to jail for or being fined thousands of dollars for, so I decided that if Al Arabiya wasn't going to stand up for the story then I wasn't either." She said new media laws in Dubai meant journalists could be imprisoned or fined for writing stories that had on impact on Dubai's economy.
Despite taking the article down, Radsch was then told she had lost her position due to a "restructure". She believes it was actually as a result of pressure from Emirates over the story. An Emirates spokesman denied the claim, saying: "Emirates does not interfere with the operations of Al Arabiya." The airline's Australian-based public relations firm -- PPR -- also supplied a statement the airline released following Radsch's report, claiming inaccuracies. Al Arabiya did not respond to requests for comment. The Australian
 Over here they're centers for Leftist recruitment, and then the products of the two work neatly hand-in-hand. "British universities: seats of learning - and loathing," by Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Telegraph, January 2 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab "never gave his tutors any cause for concern, and was a well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man", explained University College London, as it busily seemed to wash its hands of any responsibility for fostering a suicide bomber who attempted to down a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day.
While of course, said Provost Malcolm Grant, the authorities would be reflecting very carefully, students were admitted on merit and there could be no vetting "of their political, racial or religious background or beliefs".... Did no tutor talk to him about his life outside engineering? Did it concern no one that this lonely boy had taken to wearing Islamic dress?
Wasn't anyone worried about the radicalism of the "War on Terror Week" Abdulmutallab organised as president? Did anyone know he had asked a "hate-preacher" to address the society? Or did UCL think their job was simply to teach the boy engineering in exchange for his father's large cheques?... Good questions! It's not that universities haven't had enough warnings. Sheikh Musa Admani, an imam at London Metropolitan University, pleaded with both the Home Office and academic leaders to supervise and control Islamic societies.
He spoke eloquently of vulnerable, friendless first-year students, confused about the conflict between Islam and hedonistic secular values, who are natural prey for Islamist evangelists offering companionship, brotherly love and a clear sense of identity. Admani's common-sense advice - for instance, that prayer rooms should be open to all, not just Muslims, and that speakers should be vetted - were seemingly ignored by most academics and officials.
So what he had observed continued: university after university provided Muslim prayer rooms that were all too often taken over by extremists who changed the locks, showed innocent freshers heavy-duty propaganda films of Muslim suffering at the hands of wicked Jews, Americans and Brits, and brought to the campus inspirational speakers who encouraged the young to sacrifice themselves for Allah. Then there was Professor Anthony Glees who, four years ago in his book When Students Turn to Terror, named more than 30 universities where "extremist and/or terror groups" were to be found. He was denounced by the National Union of Students and met with hostility from the academic establishment.
The following year, when an all-party parliamentary commission reported on the rise in anti-Semitism that was accompanying increasing support for Islamism on campuses, in the words of its chairman, the respected Denis MacShane, "university vice-chancellors and the university lecturers' union pooh-poohed our concerns".
And when the Government finally became alarmed, its suggestion that academics should keep an eye on their students and report signs of extremism was angrily rejected by the same union (University and College Union), which boasts a substantial minority who want an academic boycott against Israel.... Read it all at the Telegraph With thanks to JihadWatch.
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