 A NEW regime of even tougher airport security is expected, after screening failures allowed a Nigerian man who trained with al-Qa'ida and was listed on a US terrorist database to try to blow up an international flight shortly before it landed in Detroit. The attempted bombing of the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, with 278 passengers, has highlighted security weaknesses in three countries. Authorities are particularly concerned that the accused bomber, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was already registered as a suspected terrorist but not prevented from flying or put on an official "watch-list" because of insufficient information. Abdulmutallab, who was badly burned during the incident on Christmas Day (Washington time), was charged in a Detroit hospital yesterday with attempting to destroy an aircraft. He is accused of detonating an explosive device attached to his body. Investigators have found the device contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, the same plastic explosive used by convicted al-Qa'ida "shoe bomber" Richard Reid in December 2001. Flights to the US were already subject to random searches and explosives-detection tests, but US authorities have told airlines worldwide that all passengers must now be patted down by security staff and have their carry-on baggage searched prior to boarding. As well as being required to be seated one hour prior to arrival, passengers will be prevented from accessing overhead lockers and cabin baggage or having blankets, pillows or belongings on their laps during this time. Security at airports around the world was significantly tightened after al-Qa'ida-backed terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, brought down four aircraft and killed almost 3000 people. Reid's failed attempt to destroy a US-bound flight using a bomb in his shoe prompted authorities to require passengers to take off their shoes during airport screening. In the latest attack, the accused Nigerian man is said to have passed security undetected by hiding PETN detonation materials on his body that were too small to detect. After possibly mixing powder and a small amount of fluid in one of the jet's toilets and returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab covered himself with a blanket and allegedly set off the device. Passengers who witnessed the incident as the plane approached Detroit Metropolitan Airport said they saw a man on fire and an apparent explosion. He was overpowered by passengers and brought to the front of the aircraft. Abdulmutallab was charged while sitting in a wheelchair in a hospital conference room at the University of Michigan Health Centre, where he is being treated for third-degree burns. He faced two charges: attempting to destroy an aircraft and placing a destructive device on board an aircraft. According to reporters, he was asked if he understood the charges. He replied in English: "Yes, I do." British police yesterday conducted searches at various addresses in London, including the basement flat where Abdulmutallab had lived when he was a student. Abdulmutallab's father, a prominent Nigerian former banker, revealed yesterday that he had alerted the US embassy in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, six months ago about the possible risk posed by his son's "radicalisation and associations". Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, is understood to have raised concerns that his son may have travelled to Yemen and feared that he wanted to join "some kind of jihad". The US government appears to have followed up the alert by creating a file in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment. But Abdulmutallab had already been granted a two-year tourist visa in June last year by the US embassy in London. He was not placed on a "no-fly list" nor "watch-listed" on the day of the incident.
Abdulmutallab was a mechanical engineering student in London. He is then believed to have asked his family for further support to study in Dubai, but may have travelled to Yemen.
He is alleged to have told FBI investigators after his arrest that he received training and explosive materials from terrorists in Yemen linked to al-Qa'ida. This information is still to be verified.
Amsterdam's Schipol aiport, where Abdulmutallab boarded for Detroit, is one of the world's most high-security airports.
Schipol is understood to be testing a new generation of screening equipment, called backscatter body scanners, although it is not known at this stage if this device was used for Abdulmutallab's flight.
While some reports said yesterday explosive materials were hidden on his body, one claimed more specifically that powder was sewn into his underpants.
It was also claimed he mixed the powder with liquid from a syringe, part of which was found near his seat after the explosion. The small quantity may not have been sufficient to do wider damage to the plane.
If explosives were attached to Abdulmutallab's body, the only way to have detected them would have been a body search.
Several Republicans yesterday accused Barack Obama of failing to take notice of early signs of terrorism. Pete Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said: "We came very, very close to losing that plane."
The US President, who is holidaying with his family in Hawaii, was briefed on the incident and did not return home early to Washington. The Australian 
 Growing evidence that the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a commercial airliner as it landed in Detroit Friday spent time in Yemen and may have been fitted with customized, explosive-laden clothing there could complicate the U.S. government’s efforts to send home more than 80 Yemeni prisoners currently at Guantanamo Bay. Since Yemenis represent almost half of the roughly 200 remaining prisoners at Gitmo, new hurdles to their resettlement could spell more trouble for President Barack Obama’s plan to close the island prison while transferring a limited number of detainees to a prison in the U.S. Six Yemeni nationals were returned home earlier this month, and officials hoped more transfers would follow. The relatively weak central government has been working, with U.S. military and diplomatic support, to counter two separate insurgencies, and the nation, Osama Bin Laden’s ancestral home, has become a haven for some members of Al Qaeda. That instability has contributed to concerns within the Obama administration and from its domestic critics about returning prisoners there for repatriation. The Nigerian man charged with the Christmas Day bombing attempt aboard Northwest Flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, reportedly spent time in Yemen after graduating from a London university in 2008. According to ABC News, Abdulmutallab has told authorities that, while in Yemen, Al Qaeda operatives crafted the explosive device which was sewn into Abdulmutallab’s underwear. “Yesterday just highlights the fact that sending this many people back—or any people back—to Yemen right now is a really bad idea,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “It’s just dumb….If you made a list of what the three dumbest countries would be to send people back to, Yemen would be on all the lists.” “I think it’s a major mistake,” Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said about prisoner releases to Yemen. “I don’t think Guantanamo should be closed, but if we’re going to close it I don’t believe we should be sending people to Yemen where prisoners have managed to escape in the past….Obviously, if [Abdulmutallab] did get training and direction from Yemen, it just adds to what is already a dangerous situation.” While Republicans have long been outspoken against plans to send more Guantanamo prisoners to Yemen, the Northwest Airlines incident seems to have persuaded at least one key Democrat that those plans should be reconsidered. “In terms of sending more of them to return to Yemen, it would be a bit of a reach,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told POLITICO on Saturday. “I’d, at a minimum, say that whatever we were about to do we’d at least have to scrub it again from top to bottom.” Thompson, who said he plans to convene hearings in January about the bombing attempt, said the reported Yemen links to the incident could even lead some members to question whether Yemenis at Guantanamo should be transferred to the new terror prison the administration wants to set up in Thomson, Ill. “It’s something that’s going to be of interest to everybody…We ought to look at everything we have underway to make sure that something hasn’t been overlooked,” the congressman said. More at Politico
 The man charged with attempting to destroy a U.S. airliner on Friday is the son of prominent Nigerian banker and had been a college student in Britain before moving to Dubai, according to family and official sources. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, received a college degree at the University College of London, according to a source who lives at the family home in Kaduna, Nigeria. Dave Weston, a spokesman for the university, said a man named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was enrolled in the mechanical engineering department between September 2005 and June 2008. His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, recently retired as chairman of First Bank PLC, one of the Nigeria's premier banks, said the source, who lives at the family home in Kaduna, Nigeria. Abdulmutallab went to Dubai to study for a second degree, the family source told CNN, but contacted his family to so say he was moving to Yemen, implying that he was leaving "for the course of Islam." It was after this communication that his father contacted security services and the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, to warn that he feared his son might intend to participate in "some kind of jihad," the family source said. The family member said Abdulmutallab "had no family consent or support" and that he "absconded to Yemen." Abdulmutallab's last known London address was a basement apartment in a wealthy neighborhood. On Saturday, counterterrorism police officers police went in and out of an ornate building on Mansfield Street where Abdulmutallab apparently lived. Abdulmutallab was granted a multiple-year, multiple-entry tourist visa at the U.S. Embassy in London in June 2008, a senior U.S. administration official familiar with the case told CNN on Saturday. At the time, there was "no derogatory information that would have prevented him from getting a visa," said the official. When Abdulmuttalab returned to Nigeria from London, he told his family he wanted to get a second college degree in Cairo or Saudi Arabia, the family source said. The family refused, because they were worried that he may have developed ties to some dubious people. He went to Dubai instead, the source said. CNN
 AUSTRALIA'S most notorious terrorist Willie Brigitte will be free from jail next year, having served less than half his sentence for conspiring to blow up the nation's only nuclear reactor and the power grid. Caribbean-born Muslim convert Brigitte made headlines in 2007 when he was sentenced in France, following his arrest in Sydney, to a maximum nine years in jail for joining an al-Qaeda-backed Pakistani terror cell out to bomb Lucas Heights nuclear plant, the national electricity grid and/or a military base. But The Daily Telegraph can reveal that the French Justice Ministry is considering releasing the 41-year-old on an early release good behaviour plan - possibly in the new year. He is expected to immediately leave France for the Middle East, with Australia definitely off his itinerary. Authorities close to his case in Paris said the decision would no doubt cause some diplomatic ructions in Australia but that the judiciary was a separate arm of the state. "He will be free next year, it was nine years but with good behaviour," Mr Durimel said. "Of course he is happy. He had no problem in prison, he had good behaviour and when people are of good behaviour they may leave early." Mr Durimel visited Brigitte in his maximum security cell in a complex outside Paris in the past couple of months to break the news. "He is very angry because he thinks that the Australian authorities pursued him for a political purpose. He always said he was not a terrorist and that the file was empty but for him it was a political decision and not a judicial decision," Mr Durimel said. Brigitte was born on the Caribbean island of Guadaloupe, a French territory, to affluent parents. He joined the navy in 1989 but quit four years later and moved to Paris. There he embraced a radical form of Islam and began associating with members of Algeria's Islamist extremist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. He ran survival training lessons in the forests outside Paris for those wishing to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Twice divorced, he moved to Pakistan in 2001 following the September 11 bombings. It was there he began to train in earnest for jihad with other foreigners at a base run by the al-Qaeda-backed Lashkar-e-Toiba, as they all awaited for their instructions to attack the West. He later moved back to Paris but in May 2003 was given money and instructions to move to Sydney and make contact with an established terror cell and await further instructions. Ten days after he arrived in Sydney he married his third wife, unsuspecting army reservist and recent Muslim convert Melanie Brown. She said she only became suspicious of her husband when he continuously questioned her about her time as a signaller in East Timor, the military equipment she used and her knowledge of army bases. She later sought to downplay the admission. He moved about in Lakemba in Sydney's southwest, with authorities oblivious to his background or intent. He worked at a takeaway shop and attended a local mosque. Then he made contact with Sydney architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi. The Pakistan-born architect was central to the plot to bomb a major icon such as the nuclear plant, Pine Gap spy base in central Australia, the national electricity grid or Holsworthy barracks. The plot was in its infancy when the French authorities discovered Brigitte had travelled to Australia and requested from the Australian Embassy any details of his travel. The request was initially ignored so the French sent ASIO a message, but it was a public holiday and the fax for urgent assistance was left on a machine in Canberra. About 10 days later Brigitte was arrested on immigration irregularities and was detained - and his full background revealed. Brigitte was deported in October and during interrogation said he was trained as a bombmaker and dispatched to cause death and destruction. The Australian
 Federal authorities arrested a 19-year-old Jordanian citizen whom they said placed an inactive car bomb today at Fountain Place, a 60-story skyscraper in downtown Dallas. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi has repeatedly voiced his intent to serve Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida and commit “violent Jihad,” authorities said in a prepared statement. “Today’s arrest of Hosam Maher Husein Smadi underscores the FBI’s unwavering commitment to bring to justice persons who attempt to bring harm to citizens of this country and significant danger to this community,” special FBI agent in charge Robert E. Casey, Jr. said in the statement. “Smadi made a decision to act to commit a significant conspicuous act of violence under his banner of ‘self Jihad.’” Authorities said that Smadi was under continuous FBI surveillance.
Federal agents posed as members of an al-Qa’ida sleeper cell. Smadi, who was in the U.S. illegally, allegedly told them that he came to the country specifically to commit “Jihad for the sake of God.” According to authorities, Smadi identified potential Dallas targets in June and allegedly scoped out Fountain Place in July. Authorities said that Smadi lived and worked in Italy, Texas, about 45 miles south of Dallas. Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert said city officials were notified of the impending arrest beforehand. “We were clearly communicated to that there was not going to be a danger to anybody,” Leppert said. “There’s a good working relationship between the police and the FBI. This is an example of that.” Leppert mentioned that there was another terrorism arrest in Springfield today. Regarding the arrests in Dallas, Denver, New York City and Springfield, he said, “It’s a comment on the world we live in. All of us need to be vigilant.” Source: Dallas Morning News
 Three Britons have been found guilty of plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up transatlantic airliners bound for North America. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, were convicted on Monday of conspiring to detonate bombs hidden in soft drink bottles in mid-flight suicide attacks. The bombers intended to simultaneously destroy at least seven planes carrying over 200 passengers each between London's Heathrow airport and the United States and Canada in August 2006, prosecutors said. The suspected al-Qaeda plot led to a tight of security restrictions worldwide on the amount of liquids passengers could take on board aircraft. Four other men were found not guilty of the plot and the jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of an eighth suspect. The conspirators were caught just days from putting the plan into operation following the largest surveillance operation of its kind being carried out by British police. "If they had been successfully deployed, they would have killed thousands of people on board and maybe more if they had detonated them over land," said a senior British police source, speaking on condition on anonymity.
 A CANADIAN man was sentenced today to 14 years in prison for his role in a foiled plot to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange, a military base and Canada's spy agency headquarters. Saad Khalid is the second of the so-called "Toronto 18" to be sentenced for the planned attacks, which were to have been carried out by stuffing rented vans with explosives. The 18 suspects were arrested during a police sting operation in 2006. The scheme aimed to pressure Canada to withdraw from Afghanistan. Khalid will serve only seven years in prison, as under Canadian rules he will receive double credit for time spent in jail awaiting trial. In September 2008, one of Khalid's co-accused, a minor, was convicted of "terrorist activity". He was sentenced to two and a half years in jail but was immediately released as he had spent three years in custody awaiting trial. Nine other alleged accomplices remain in prison awaiting trial, while seven others were released after charges were dropped. Khalid was among 14 adults and four minors charged after allegedly trying to buy three tonnes of the bomb-making ingredient ammonium nitrate from undercover police officers. The officers had replaced the ammonium nitrate with an inert substance. Trials for the remaining adult defendants are expected to begin next year. Source: The Australian
 Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | November 26, 2008
THE alleged al-Qa'ida mastermind of the plot to bomb trans-Atlantic aircraft, Briton Rashid Rauf, is still alive, his lawyer claimed last night, amid reports that the terrorist organisation's leaders are being forced to flee to new hideouts in Pakistan because of US unmanned drone attacks.
Western diplomats were quoted as saying a recent drone strike was launched after intelligence was received that Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was in the area.
Al-Qa'ida's main link with the Taliban, an Arab identified as Abdullah Azam al-Saudi, was killed as the Hellfire missiles fired from the Predator drones struck a compound on the outskirts of Bannu, a key garrison town near Pakistan's troubled tribal areas. Security sources said Zawahiri was not there.
But intelligence gathered by both US and Pakistani agencies -- particularly since last weekend's onslaught in the North Waziristan Tribal Agency, in which Rauf and Egyptian bomb-maker and bin Laden aide Abu Zabair al-Masri are said to have been killed -- indicates that "al-Qa'ida's principal leaders are moving away from the tribal belt because of the intensity of the drone strikes".
US and Pakistani officials are convinced that Rauf, a 27-year-old former British bakery delivery driver, was killed in the attack. However, his lawyer insisted last night that reports of his death were false.
"We don't believe that this story is true. It's a fake story," lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib told the BBC world service.
"We still believe that my client Rashid is alive."
He said that requests for Rauf's body to be returned to his family -- a hallowed principle in Islam -- had gone unanswered.
Britain's The Times suggested yesterday that it was explosives expert Masri, rather than Rauf, who was the main target of the drone attack. The newspaper said Masri had been holding an "operational meeting" with four other key figures when the drones struck.
Outrage in Pakistan over the drone onslaught gathered momentum last night when cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan led a protest rally in Islamabad and accused the country's Government of having "become a slave of the US (that) carries out its orders".
At the same time, security officials in the key provincial capital of Peshawar claimed to have killed more than 25 militants and captured 40. Source: The Australian
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
A NEW regime of even tougher airport security is expected, after screening failures allowed a Nigerian man who trained with al-Qa'ida and was listed on a US terrorist database to try to blow up an international flight shortly before it landed in Detroit. 
Posts
