 BARACK Obama is right to say the buck stops with him for the failures of his intelligence services. He is right to call a spade and a spade and declare the US is indeed in a war against terrorist groups such as al-Qa'ida. But in his White House address yesterday, the President seemed at times more like a divisional manager than the leader of the free world. His downbeat response to the aborted Christmas Day terror attack on a Detroit-bound aircraft did not truly acknowledge the shocking failure of American security and the potentially devastating fallout from those mistakes.
The President identified the failures to "connect and understand" information collected by agencies on the young Nigerian who almost blew up a plane.
But no individuals were identified publicly as being responsible for these operational failures. No heads have rolled. The President initially reacted cautiously to the Christmas Day incident. He took two weeks to respond in detail. Such a measured response may have been calculated to calm American nerves - and deny the terrorists the reaction they seek. But the failure of American intelligence in this case, eight years after September 11, is a cause for deep dismay.
Mr Obama must juggle several imperatives in dealing with this issue, including the need to ensure Americans do not lose faith in the intelligence services.
Equally, he cannot allow terrorists to believe the services are vulnerable. But Americans need to know their President is serious about fixing the security gaps. It is not just that the buck stops with Mr Obama - the ball is now truly in his court. The Australian
 How courageous is Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the father of terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? If, as it is argued, the Islamic world sees the War on Terror as a War on Islam, it must have been quite intimidating to walk into the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria. It must have been terrifying to walk to the front desk and ask to see the man in charge. It must have been a father's worst nightmare: not only to turn his son over to the authorities, but also to know that Guantanamo may have been in the boy's future. Did Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, though a wealthy and respected banker, fear that he, too, might find himself on the business end of an American rifle? One does not casually discuss actionable information on terrorism with American officials and not expect a hard look and maybe a little roughing-up. The White House Review of the Christmas Day terrorist attack reads like a game of Clue, in reverse. From the start, we knew the killer, we knew his location, and after sixty years of aircraft hijackings and Al Qaida's record, we had a pretty good idea of the weapon of choice. We even had a motive and a witness.
The White House blames Abdulmutallab's success on a failure to "connect the dots," but, in fact, the dots were already connected. There were no dots. We already had all the information necessary to shut down Abdulmutallab. No secret missions were in order. No covert bribes in cash-stuffed briefcases needed to change hands at disused bus stops. Delta operatives didn't have to to kick down doors, and there was no need to dust off the waterboard to draw out a name.
We knew everything.
In a press conference, President Obama said that our failure to stop the terrorist incident was "not the fault of a single individual or organization."
But that's not true. The minute Abdulmutallab's father walked into a U.S. Embassy with news that his son was a potential terrorist, the official in charge was duty-bound to see this through. Every scrap of paper and every byte of data on the suspect should have been called up and frozen. That's why we have embassies. When the information was passed to the first special agent at the CIA, he or she was duty bound to see it through. When the information was passed to the first administrator at the National Counterterrorism Center, he or she, too, was duty bound to see it to the end.
Everyone who read the name "Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab" prior to December 25, 2009 should be reprimanded and fired.
The White House findings state that, "Mr. Abdulmutallab possessed a U.S. visa, but this fact was not correlated with the concerns of Mr. Abdulmutallab's father about Mr. Abdulmutallab's potential radicalization." It's an embarrassing sentence of bureaucratese in its own right, but more so when considered in context. The State Department didn't revoke Abdulmutallab's visa because an office clerk misspelled his name in a database.
Has no one in the intelligence community ever used Google? When "Abdulmutalab" was typed in, did the computer not ask, "Did you mean 'Abdulmutallab'?"
Another admission that crosses the threshold of bewildering into the realm of criminally negligent: the National Counterterrorism Center has a database of all known and suspected international terrorists. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was added to that database.
But that database does not feed directly into the TSA No-Fly List.
Who more than known terrorists belong on the No-Fly List? There should be no human involvement required here. One line of SQL database code could have averted disaster.
According to the White House, when the CIA and NCTC got the name of a radicalized militant from the militant's own father, and a warning that he was planning an attack, they did not search "all available databases to uncover additional derogatory information." How many databases are there? And how many terrorist databases must one appear in before he or she is considered a threat to U.S. national security?
This wasn't a ticking time bomb situation involving a lone wolf under the radar. Such a terrorist will succeed, and there's nothing we can do about it, aside from remaining vigilant. But the United States already knew about Abdulmutallab, and learned of his intentions on November 18th -- a month before he struck.
Most grating in the White House report is the repeated notion that Abdulmutallab's plot failed. It didn't. Nine years after 9/11, and after billions of spent dollars in needless security, confiscated fingernail clippers, and dumped breast milk, he succeeded in smuggling explosives onto an airliner destined for American soil. He succeeded in igniting the explosive. If not for dumb luck involving bad chemistry and a brave Dutch film director, there might today be a smoldering crater in Detroit.
After the attack, President Obama remained in Hawaii and enjoyed a Christmas vacation on the golf course. After the attack, National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter took a six-day skiing holiday. After the attack, CIA director Leon Panetta remained in beautiful Monterey, California. The nation, the administration claims, can be governed from afar, and that's probably true. But when terrorists attempt a major strike on U.S. soil, isn't it a good idea to have someone in the White House situation room above the rank of janitor?
When National Security Advisor James Jones warned that the White House review of the Christmas Day terrorist attack would bring "a certain shock," one expected to learn of political intrigue and a mishandling of delicate scraps of questionable intelligence. But rather, Mr. Jones must have been referring to the Obama administration's hubris in this matter, which is the most shocking revelation of all.
D.B. Grady is the author of Red Planet Noir. The Atlantic 
 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 Nigerian charged with trying to set off a bomb on a US-bound plane on Christmas Day was radicalised and recruited by al-Qa'ida while a student in London, the Yemeni Government says. The claim, disputed by British officials, came amid mounting concern and growing evidence that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had ties to known Islamic radicals while an undergraduate at University College London between 2005 and 2008. "The information provided to us is that Umar Farouk joined al-Qa'ida in London," said Rashad al-Alimi, the Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Security. Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, told MPs earlier this week that Mr Abdulmutallab was "radicalised after he left this country" but it emerged yesterday that he was noted on UCL files as someone who had contact with known radicals. Mr al-Alimi also said that in Yemen, the alleged bomber met the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the cleric who had e-mail contact with the Muslim US Army psychologist who has been charged with going on a shooting spree that left 13 people dead at Fort Hood in Texas. White House aides said that Mr Obama was furious over the security breach, and the President said that the incident had revealed "human and systemic" failures across the US intelligence and security community. In a private meeting with top intelligence officials on Tuesday, he called the bomb plot "a screw-up that could have been disastrous". Mr Abdulmutallab was allowed to board Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam, bound for Detroit, with plastic explosives sewn into his underwear. As the flight, carrying 290 passengers and crew, was circling Detroit in preparation for landing, he injected a priming agent into the explosive. Flames shot into the air but the device failed to explode. Remarkably, he was allowed on to the flight with a multiple-entry visa to the US, despite having been placed on a no-entry list for Britain. Mr Abdulmutallab also paid cash and had no checked baggage - further "red flags" that US officials now say should have prevented him from boarding the aircraft. General James Jones, Mr Obama's National Security Adviser, said before the security report was released that the President "is legitimately and correctly alarmed that things that were available, bits of information that were available, patterns of behaviour that were available, were not acted on". Mr Obama said on Tuesday that the attempted bombing "was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence we already had". Aides said that Mr Obama had been particularly shocked that such a failure could have occurred despite the reforms put into place after the September 11 attacks. General Jones said that Americans would feel a "certain shock" when they read the report and discovered the many clues that were not acted upon to stop Mr Abdulmutallab from boarding the flight. It also emerged that US border security officials learned of Mr Abdulmutallab's possible extremist links once the flight was already in the air and were preparing to question him after he had landed in Detroit. Mr Abdulmutallab had never been placed on the US no-fly list. Yet the warnings his father delivered to US State Department officials in Nigeria had landed him on a secondary database - a list that contains over half a million people but which does not prohibit them from flying. Border agents cross-referenced his name to the second list after the plane had taken off. On Wednesday Mr Abdulmutallab was formally charged by a federal grand jury on six counts, including attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction aboard a US aircraft, crimes punishable by life imprisonment. The Australian
 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
 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
 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.
 If this anonymous piece is accurate, maybe he was just practicing damage control when he notified the authorities about his son's "extremism" -- as Creeping Sharia puts it, daddy "threw his son under the bus to protect himself and his own Islamist interests." But it looks as if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is a chip off the old block. It's overheated, yes, and the English is faulty, but the most important question here is, Are these charges true?
"Nigerian Muslim Jihadist and Al Qaida Ties Started Long Ago with Alhaji Mutallab,,.The Father As a Leader of Sharia Movement In Nigeria," from Africa Today, January 1 (thanks to Creeping Sharia): Let the world not be fooled by the diguised of Northern Nigerian Religious extremism muslim as represented by their leaders like Yaradua Family, Mutallab Family, Sanusi Family, Bayero Families, Yerima family, Babangida family, Abdulsalam, family, Abacha, Jubril Aminu family, Atiku Family etc. and all of the emires and Ulamas and Northern Nigeria leaders and muslim families AND FOLLOWERS for they all have ties to Muslim Wahabism extremisism in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Dubai, Yemen, Egytp etc and with the world jihadist movement and the world is just now waking up to it and the facts has been there for a long time and now they are exporting terrorism, jihadism, wahabism and Al Qaida to the world. They are all part and parcel of this problem because they planted this it but it is now known and let the world not be fooled. Like all of the muslim Northern Nigerian leaders, DR. Mutallab the father of the terrorist who is now shedding crocodile tears because he is one of the leaders who groom the Wahabism in Nigeria.
Alhaji Dr. Mutallab the father also groomed Sharia law in Katsina State, Alhaji DR. Mutallab Groom Sharia in Kaduna State,Alhaji Dr. Mutallab groomed Sharia in Kano State, Most of the extremism Ulama in Northern Muslim Nigeria are benefactors of Alhaji Mutallab, Dr. Mutallab groomed extreme Muslim businesses in Saudi Arabia, He has extreme business in Dubai and he has extreme religious business in Yemen and he has business and property in Yemen.
Alhaji Mutallab is the owner of the only Islamic Bank in Nigeria, Alhaji Mutallab has ties and interest in almost all the extremist muslim religious groups in Nigeria. He is a top leader of the Sharia movement COUNCIL in Nigeria. This guy is dangerous and he has gotten it hot and thats why he is running from pillar to post because he destroyed Nigeria with his corrupt ways and his muslim jihadist ideas for long time. Dr. Mutallab the father of the terrorist was just covering his ass because he does not want to loose his investment in the Westen World and he does not want his family to be place on the no fly list as he wants to still enjoy his vacation and western women and western wine and drinks in Engalnd, Europe and America while still using extremism and corruption to maintain their corrupt hold in Nigeria by stealing from their people, thats thats why he reported his son to America, because he and most of the Muslim leaders in Nigeria knows more and they are part of the sponsors of world wide jihadism wahabism from Saudi Arabia, Sudan,Dubai, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan etc.... With thanks to JihadWatch
  Jasper Schuringa, the man who jumped and subdued the Muslim terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day flight NW253.
 That's what voters say, according to today's Rasmussen survey: Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% oppose the use of such techniques, and another 12% are not sure. There's this, too: Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters think the attempt by the Nigerian Muslim to blow up the airliner as it landed in Detroit should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act. Only 22% say it should be handled by civilian authorities as a criminal act, as is currently the case. My conclusion: the debate is over, and Dick Cheney won it. PAUL adds: I would waterboard the guy only as a last resort. Does that make me a moderate on this issue? Power Line
The Yemeni government has vowed to deal with the "menace of al-Qaeda in Yemen" after the group claimed responsibility for a plot to bring down an aircraft bound for the US city of Detroit on Christmas. Saying his government would not authorise or co-operate with any potential US strike on its soil, Abdullah Alsaidi, Yemen's permanent representative to the United Nations, told Al Jazeera that his country "is capable of taking care of its own problems". Alsaidi welcomed co-operation with and assistance from the US "with respect to intelligence information", saying it was necessary to Yemen's battle against al-Qaeda. But he added that "we are not encouraging US attacks, we are saying that Yemen will take care of this problem on its own". On Wednesday, Yemeni security forces raided an alleged al-Qaeda hideout in a western province, sparking a gun battle with fighters. A security official speaking on condition of anonymity said the target was a house owned by an al-Qaeda sympathiser. The official said the owner was arrested, a suspected al-Qaeda member was injured and several fighters who fled were being pursued. Brigadier-General Saleh al-Zawari, Yemen's deputy interior minister, told senior military officials that the interior ministry "will continue tracking down al-Qaeda terrorists and will continue its strikes against the group until it is totally eliminated". Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian passenger, was arrested last Friday on suspicion of trying to bring down the Northwest Airlines aircraft carrying 289 people. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Osama bin Laden's group based in Yemen, claimed it was behind the attempt. US investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Yemen's government said Abdulmutallab spent two periods in the country, from 2004-2005 and from August to December this year, just before the attempted attack. And Alsaidi told Al Jazeera that Abdulmutallab "was probably in touch with terror cells" in Yemen, although the envoy denied that the explosives from the failed attack came from his country, saying Abdulmutallab "most likely picked them up somewhere else". "I have also heard from other governments that he picked them up in other African countries closer to Nigeria," he said. Abdulmutallab's Yemen connection has drawn attention to al-Qaeda's presence in the country. Before Wednesday's clashes, Yemeni forces backed by US intelligence carried out two major strikes against al-Qaeda hideouts this month, reportedly killing more than 60 fighters. The US has increasingly provided intelligence, surveillance and training to Yemeni forces in the past year, and has provided some firepower, according to a senior US defence official, who requested anonymity. Bryan Whitman, a US defence department spokesman, said Yemen received $67m in training and support under the Pentagon's counterterrorism programme last year, second only to $112m spent in Pakistan. "We are going to work with allies and partners to seek out terrorist activity, al-Qaeda, wherever they operate, plan their operations, seek safe harbour," he said, adding that "this is an effort that is years old now". But US officials downplayed reports that retaliatory strikes in Yemen would be launched. "These reports are inflammatory and do not address the issue," Barbara Bodine, a former US ambassador to Yemen, told Al Jazeera, adding that "we need to understand the size, configuration of the al-Qaeda presence in Yemen". "Any moves would be better done by the Yemen military. Conducting air strikes would not help either, as you would end up with collateral damage. Actions such as these are merely reactionary, but not aimed at solving the problem," she said. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, the US president, has demanded a preliminary report by Thursday on the security lapses in the plane bomb plot. He said the intelligence community should have been able to piece together information that would have raised "red flags" and possibly prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding the airliner. Abdulmutallab had been placed in one broad database but never made it on to more restrictive lists, despite his father's warnings to US embassy officials in Nigeria last month. The failed attack in Detroit was launched almost a year after al-Qaeda's operations in Yemen and Saudi Arabia united to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, making Yemen its base. Al Jazeera
 Every Muslim group that ever had anything to do with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is trying to make sure that no one gets the idea that he learned jihad from them. School officials are not sure whether or not the Flight 253 jihadist went to an Islamic school in Houston. And in Nigeria, they've never seen al-Qaeda and are all moderates. And now we hear the same thing from his London mosque. "London Mosque 'Appalled' By Terrorist Attack," from the Daily Express, December 29 THE mosque that Abdulmutallab was reported to have visited in Britain distanced itself from the terrorist attack yesterday.... Mosque secretary Ayub Khan said: "The mosque condemns in the strongest possible terms the alleged attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner in the USA." He added that the mosque "is appalled that it should be associated with such heinous acts". However, he said the public mosque was visited by 20,000 people a year and so "cannot comment on whether this individual came". Abdulmutallab studied mechanical engineering at University College London from 2005 to 2008. Last night, a college spokesman said that "quietly spoken" Abdulmutallab "never gave his tutors any cause for concern". With thanks to JihadWatch
 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. Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the African Union military force in Mogadishu, said the chemicals from the Somali suspect could have caused an explosion that would have caused air decompression inside the plane.
However, Bahoku said he doesn't believe an explosion would have brought the plane down. A second international official familiar with the incident, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to discuss the case, confirmed that the substances carried by the Somali passenger could have been used as an explosive device. In the Detroit case, alleged attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid explosive PETN in a condom or condom-like bag just below his torso when he traveled from Amsterdam to Detroit.
Like the captured Somali, Abdulmutallab also had a syringe filled with liquid. The substances seized from the Somali passenger are being tested. The November incident garnered little attention before the Dec. 25 attack aboard a flight on final approach to Detroit. U.S. officials have now learned of the Somali case and are hastening to investigate any possible links between it and the Detroit attack, though no officials would speak on the record about the probe. U.S. investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen — which lies across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Similarly, large swaths of Somalia are controlled by an insurgent group, al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaida. Western officials say many of the hundreds of foreign jihadi fighters in Somalia come in small boats across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. The officials also say that examination of equipment used in some Somali suicide attacks leads them to believe it was originally assembled in Yemen. Law enforcement officials believe the suspect in the Detroit incident tried to ignite a two-part concoction of the high explosive PETN and possibly a glycol-based liquid explosive, setting off popping, smoke and some fire but no deadly detonation.
Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, is charged with trying to destroy an aircraft. A Somali security official involved in the capture of the suspect in Mogadishu said he had a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) package of chemical powder and a container of liquid chemicals. The security official said the suspect was the last passenger to try to board. Once security officials detected the powder chemicals and syringe, the suspect tried to bribe the security team that detained him, the Somali security official said. The security official said the suspect had a white shampoo bottle with a black acid-like substance in it. He also had a clear plastic bag with a light green chalky substance and a syringe containing a green liquid. The security official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information. The powdered material had the strong scent of ammonia, Bahoku said, and samples have been sent to London for testing. The Somali security officials said the Daallo Airlines flight was scheduled to go from Mogadishu to Hargeisa, to Djibouti and then to Dubai. A spokeswoman for Daallo Airlines said that company officials weren't aware of the incident and would have to seek more information before commenting. Daallo Airlines is based in Dubai and has offices in Djibouti and France. YahooNews
 The Washington Times appears to have confirmed what many of us have suspected immediately after the Christmas day airline bombing attempt failed and federal authorities detained Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: radical, US born cleric Anwar al Awlaki had provided the religious justification for Abdulmutallab to conduct the attack: The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the same Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect, a U.S. intelligence source has told The Washington Times. The intelligence official, who is familiar with the FBI's interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said the bombing suspect has boasted of his jihad training during interrogation by the FBI and has said it included final exhortations by Mr. al-Awlaki. "It was Awlaki who indoctrinated him," the official said. "He was told, 'You are going to be the tip of the spear of the Muslim nation.'" For more on Awlaki, see "Radical US cleric survived airstrike in Yemen: family" at The Long War Journal.
He has a history of justifying attacks against US citizens. LongWarJournal
 One is the 17th son; the other is the 16th son. Neither are the sons of a first wife. One is an engineer; the other was an engineering student. Both have ancestral roots in Yemen. Both are educated and come from wealthy families. I am talking about Osama bin Laden–the 17th son among 57 children whose father is Yemeni–and the Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab–the 16th and youngest son, whose mother is Yemeni. Both men were born “shamed,” disadvantaged, because their mothers were not “first,” or high-status wives. Both men are lonely sons of Allah, yearning for paternal attention, even affection, in a polygamous culture in which fathers have too many children and little incentive to pay close attention to any one of them. This is devastating, especially to sons, because the culture overly values fathers and men, and grossly undervalues mothers and women. Thus, the attention a son may receive from his mother (if she is not sent away, as Bin Laden’s mother was) does not make up for the missing and longed-for father. I have often thought that the way many Arab Muslim brothers brutally order their sisters around not only reflects how their fathers treat everyone, but is also a measure of their frustration about not being able to bond with their absent, lordly fathers. Thus, for a number of reasons, prison-style sexuality as well as homosexuality and homosexual pederasty is as rampant as it is forbidden in Arab and Muslim culture. Arab and Muslim sons desperately want their fathers. But their fathers are busy marrying other, younger wives, having other, newer children, and founding financial empires. They want their fathers to redeem them from the shameful fate of living in a world of mainly women–which they do when they are very young; and of course, they want their fathers for reasons of identity and inheritance. Based on his memoirs, even our totally assimilated American President is still in search of his missing, absent, polygamous Muslim father. Folks: The comparison stops here. I am not suggesting that Obama has anything else in common with Bin Laden or Abdulmutallab. Both Osama bin Laden and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are dreamy, disassociated, unnaturally calm, “removed,” and, according to my friend and colleague, Dr. Nancy L. Kobrin, perhaps “slightly autistic.” These men do not relate well to others. Both men have “issues” with women. They can’t really connect with them—but when they do, their need to control them is extreme. More at Phyllis Chesler
 Most of the stories that have gone out about Abdulmutallab's Internet postings focused on what a lonely fellow he was. This little tidbit about the great Islamic empire has not been as widely reported. "My jihad fantasy.. Muslims will win and rule the world - UMAR ABDULMUTALLAB," by Andrew Gregory for the Mirror, December 30 Failed suicide bomber Umar Abdulmutallab spelt out his nightmare vision of a world ruled by fanatical Islamic hardliners in a series of rambling internet rants. In one, he said: "I won't go into too much details about my fantasy, but basically they are jihad fantasies. "I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the muslims will win (Allah willing) and rule the whole world and establish the greatest empire once again."... With thanks to JihadWatch
 By Emily Andrews The disturbed mind of the Christmas Day airline bomber is evident in a series of tormented postings he wrote on the internet.
As a lonely 18-year-old, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab turned to an Islamic web forum as he struggled with his shame over his sexuality and growing alienation from his family.
His innermost thoughts reveal a shy and awkward teenager who loved football – but also contain chilling hints of the terrorist he would become.
They show an increasingly religious and intolerant young man who fantasised about becoming a Muslim holy warrior in the ‘great jihad’ that would take place across the world.
In 310 internet posts written between 2005 and 2007, ‘Farouk1986’ – Abdulmutallab’s middle name and year of birth – desperately searches for guidance and help in hastily written messages filled with spelling and grammatical errors.
While at a prestigious British boarding school in Togo, he wrote: ‘First of all, I have no friends.
‘Not because I do not socialise, etc but because either people do not want to get too 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.
‘Hence I am in a situation where I do not have a friend, I have no one to speak too, no one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do.’
The posts were made on an Islamic bulletin board called Gawaher, which literally translates from Arabic as ‘gems’ or ‘jewels,’ but can also be read as ‘essence’ or ‘spirit’.
They started in 2005 when Abdulmutallab was 18 and preparing to apply to British universities.
He wrote about his privileged upbringing in Nigeria and his family’s wealth.
Abdulmutallab’s father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a frequent visitor to the U.S., retired this year as chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and still sits on the boards of several prominent Nigerian firms....
 US President Barack Obama today blamed a "systemic failure" in the US intelligence network for the attempted Christmas Day airliner attack and he has vowed to quickly fix the problems. Mr Obama said errors had emerged in the process of collecting and sharing intelligence on extremists and in the homeland security system that could have prevented the attack on a packed Northwest jet heading into Detroit. “A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Mr Obama said in a blunt statement, breaking his Hawaii vacation for a second straight day to update Americans on the incident. “There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security,” Mr Obama said. “We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake.” Mr Obama's remarks came as the White House hit back at the perception that the president was disengaged, as he enjoys a break away from Washington in his native Hawaii. He particularly cited the fact that the attacker, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up the jet with concealed explosives, had been linked with extremism, but was still allowed to board the plane. The president, speaking on a Marine Base near his Hawaii vacation home, said two reviews he had already commissioned on the incident would report preliminary findings to the White House this week. But the probes had already unearthed “serious concerns” and “deficiencies”, he said. “I will do everything in my power to support the men and women in intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security to make sure they've got the tools and resources they need to keep America safe,” Mr Obama said. “But it's also my job to ensure that our intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security systems and the people in them are working effectively and held accountable. “I intend to fulfill that responsibility and insist on accountability at every level.” The Australian
Terrorism experts, Steve Emerson and Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, share their thoughts on the Christmas day terrorism aboard a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
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BARACK Obama is right to say the buck stops with him for the failures of his intelligence services.
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