 U.S. intelligence officials believe there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of Americans who have been in e-mail contact with the radical Yemeni cleric who is believed to have inspired and directed both the Fort Hood shooter and the failed Christmas Day airline bomber, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. Efforts to learn the details of that communication, or even to target Anwar Al-Awlaki militarily, may be hindered by his status as an American citizen. In addition, ABC News reports that a new Senate report raises concerns about dozens of American converts to Islam, including "blond-haired, blue-eyed types," who are believed to be in Yemen undergoing terrorist training. The full Senate Foreign Relations Committee report can be seen here. Awlaki, a U.S-born cleric, has been in Yemen since 2004. He told Al Jazeerah that he gave Nidal Malik Hasan his blessing to carry out the Fort Hood massacre November 5. Reports say he also had direct contact with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was burned trying to ignite an explosive smuggled aboard a flight from Amsterdam in his underwear Christmas Day. It's not clear whether officials have been able to study the content of all the emails. In some cases, it might be innocent communication from relatives or friends, or general religious questions. The greater concern, however, is whether some could be seeking religious justification for an attack, something that would replicate what Awlaki has described about his communication with Hasan. Hasan's attack was justified, Awlaki said: "Because Nidal's target was a military target inside America, and there is no question about this. Then, also, those members of the military [i.e. the victims] were not regular soldiers; rather they were prepared and preparing themselves to go to battle and to kill downtrodden Muslims and to commit crimes in Afghanistan." This concern comes amid numerous reports that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula may be gearing up for a new strike at American interests. Sources say law enforcement and intelligence agencies may not have enough information to open preliminary investigations and learn more about the content of communication with Awlaki. As an American citizen, Awlaki still enjoys the same civil rights as anyone in the United States. Similarly, U.S. intelligence officials believe they could have used a Predator drone strike to try to kill Awlaki, but held back because he's an American, the IPT has learned. That needs to change, said a senior US lawmaker who spoke to IPT News. "Where you have people like Awlaki – who is clearly inspirational and operational in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – we need to be able to put them in position where the U.S. military and U.S. intelligence can go after them for the people they are," the same lawmaker said in an interview. "We need to be able to find, capture and if necessary kill these individuals before they do any more harm to the United States." That could mean the U.S. is gearing up to name Awlaki a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. That status could make him vulnerable to military action and allow law enforcement to learn more about those in communication with him. According to Politico's Josh Gerstein, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quietly designated Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a terrorist group December 14. IPT News has learned that intelligence officials were trying to learn more about Awlaki's communications. He exchanged at least 18 emails with Hasan in the year leading up to the Fort Hood shooting. "He was asking about killing American soldiers and officers. [He asked] whether this is a religiously legitimate act or not," Awlaki told Al Jazeerah. Declaring Awlaki to be a Specially Designated Global Terrorist would help because this status would prohibit sending money or other forms of material support to him, said Barry Sabin, a former prosecutor in the Department of Justice's Counterterrorism section. "He becomes radioactive" with a designation, Sabin said. Robert Blitzer, the FBI's domestic terrorism chief in the 1990s and now a homeland security consultant with ICFI International, said there are things that law enforcement and intelligence officials likely are doing to build a case to monitor those communicating with Awlaki. "You're going to try your darndest to get enough information to open a preliminary inquiry," he said. Once someone is identified, you "would immediately check every record you might possibly have" on them and conduct link analysis to see if there are any other connections, Blitzer said. That includes other activities such as seeking weapons permits, which, alone, wouldn't be illegal but could mean more in connection with the communication. "You're looking at that spider web of contacts." It's reasonable to assume Awlaki's reach extends far beyond those already publicly identified. His sermons, including "Constants on the Path of Jihad," are considered to have been influential in terrorist plots in Fort Dix, Ontario, New Jersey and England. Other reports indicate there are tens of thousands of Americans and other westerners in Yemen being radicalized. At some point, they will return, like Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who killed an Army recruiter in Little Rock June 1. ABC News reported Tuesday that a new Senate Foreign Relations Committee report finds as many as three dozen Americans, most of whom converted to Islam while serving in New York prisons, have been training in Yemen and could pose a "significant threat" for attacks on America. In addition, ABC reports that the Senate committee found numerous examples of "blond-haired, blue-eyed types" also in Yemen who have converted to Islam and are feared to be undergoing training for their own possible attacks. "When are they going to go off? That's the issue," Blitzer said. In the cases of Muhammad, Hasan and Abdulmutallab, the terrorists were well educated and came from relatively comfortable backgrounds. That increases the challenge for law enforcement and intelligence. "These are well educated folks who embraced religion to the degree that they're willing to sacrifice themselves." IPT
 The United Nations security council has added the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to its list of outlawed organisations.
Two of the group's purported leaders, Nasser al-Wahayshi and Qasim al-Raymi, also face new restrictions after the move by the international body's sanctions committee on Tuesday.
Among the sanctions against the two men, who were among 23 fighters who escaped from a jail in Sanaa in 2006, were worldwide freezes on their assets and travel bans.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claims to have been behind the failed attempt to blow up a Detriot-bound airliner on Christmas Day as well as other attacks inside Yemen and Saudi Arabia. "Today's actions strengthen international efforts to degrade the capabilities of AQAP," Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said.
The UN committee made its decision the day after the US state department added the al-Qaeda group to it list of proscribed organisations.
"We are determined to eliminate AQAP's ability to execute violent attacks and to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat their networks," Philip Crowley, a state department spokesman, said.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was formed in January 2009 after the merger of groups in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
It has since set up bases inside Yemen and has been blamed for the suicide attack on South Korean tourists in March 2009 and an attempt to assassinate the Saudi deputy interior minister across the border in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
Yemen has bolsetered its troops in three of the country's provinces in an attempt to tackle al-Qaeda and has carried out a number of air raids, which it claims have left dozens of fighters dead.
Al-Raymi was among a number of senior al-Qaeda figures reported to have been killed in a Yemeni attack on two vehicles on Friday.
The government in Sanaa is also battling so-called Houthi rebels in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. Al Jazeera 
 The foiled attempt by young Nigerian extremist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day has baffled many Africans and sent them scrambling for an explanation. This is not the stereotypical poor and desperate young man usually associated with violence on the continent. For one, Abdulmutallab is the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker and former government minister. His father even tipped off the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to his son's growing radicalism. Second, neither Islam nor Christianity is indigenous to Africa, and the idea of dying on behalf of a foreign religion is absurd to most Africans. Third, the United States was never a colonial power in Africa and, therefore, it seems an odd target. In fact, it's a popular destination for many young Nigerians looking to emigrate. And yet, Africa only has to look within to find the causes for radicalization. About 60 percent of Africa's nearly 1 billion people are less than 30 years old. In the past few decades, these young people have become increasingly disaffected, lost, and restless, and who can blame them? Poorly educated and jobless, they have few role models with moral stature. The value system has collapsed. Hard work and entrepreneurship no longer assure success and wealth. Political connections matter. The richest men in Africa are often heads of state and ministers. Of the 209 African heads of state since 1960, fewer than 15 can be classified as good, clean leaders. The rest -- an assortment of military brutes, briefcase bandits, and crackpot democrats -- are decidedly uninspiring. How can Africa claim to be fighting terrorism when the chairman of the African Union itself is Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, an admitted sponsor of terrorism? At the United Nations' May 2002 Children's Summit in New York, youngsters from Africa stunned the audience by ripping into their leaders. "You get loans that will be paid in 20 to 30 years ... and we have nothing to pay them with because when you get the money, you embezzle it, you eat it," said 12-year-old Joseph Tamale from Uganda. Adam Maiga from Mali weighed in: "We must put an end to this demagoguery. You have parliaments, but they are used as democratic decoration." Disenchanted by their own societies, African youth have become increasingly susceptible to radical ideas and religious extremists -- not just the Islamist fanatics in northern Nigeria and Somalia, but also the Christian variety (the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda) and the traditionalist (the Mungiki sect in Kenya).
Some seek escape in rickety boats to Europe. Others turn to crime (drug trafficking, Internet scams), prostitution, and extremist groups that seek violent change. It is sclerotic leadership and catastrophic government failure -- not poverty -- that breed this hopelessness and despair in Africa's young people, luring them to extremism. In many African countries, government has ceased to exist or function. In its place is a vampire state -- a government hijacked by unrepentant bandits who use the machinery of the state to enrich themselves, crush their enemies, and perpetuate themselves in office. In Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, governments that scarcely provide basic social services are even at war with their own people. And their people have responded with violence.
Just last week, a separatist group, Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), opened fire on a bus carrying the Togolese soccer team to the Africa Cup, killing the driver and two team officials. FLEC seeks independence from Angola, whose government is one of the worst of these dysfunctional bodies. What motivated these young men was likely not that different from what compelled Abdulmutallab to board that plane. More at Foreign Policy
 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
 Suicidal. "Detroit bomber 'singing like a canary' before arrest," by Philip Sherwell in the Telegraph, January 9 (thanks to Banafsheh): President Barack Obama is under fire over claims that the Christmas Day underwear bomber was "singing like a canary" until he was treated as an ordinary criminal and advised of his right to silence. The chance to secure crucial information about al-Qaeda operations in Yemen was lost because the Obama administration decided to charge and prosecute Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal, critics say. He is said to have reduced his co-operation with FBI interrogators on the advice of his government-appointed defence counsel. The potential significance became chillingly clear this weekend when it was reported that shortly after his detention, he boasted that 20 more young Muslim men were being prepared for similar murderous missions in the Yemen.
The lawyer for the 23-year-old Nigerian entered a formal not guilty plea on Friday to charges that he tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25 - even though he reportedly admitted earlier that he was trained and supplied with the explosives sewn into his underwear by al-Qaeda in the Arab state. "He was singing like a canary, then we charged him in civilian proceedings, he got a lawyer and shut up," Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission that investigated the Sept 2001 terror attacks on the US, told The Sunday Telegraph. "I find it incomprehensible that this administration is treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue.
The president has finally said that we are at war with al-Qaeda. Well, if this is a war, then Abdulmutallab should be treated as a combatant not a criminal."... Not with this President in power. With thanks to JihadWatch
 Less than a month after major Nidal Hasan allegedly killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon's top intelligence officer sent the White House a report detailing an earlier failure to connect the dots.
It reads like a dress rehearsal for the Detroit bomber case, reports CBS News chief national security correspondent David Martin.
According to that still-classified report, the terrorism task force responsible for determining whether Hasan posed a threat never saw all 18 e-mails he exchanged with that radical Yemeni cleric Awlaki whose communications were being monitored under a court ordered wiretap.
After the Washington task force decided Hasan was not dangerous, it never asked to see his subsequent communications with Alwaki.
"I think it's a real problem that you didn't have in one place at one time all of the communications being evaluated," said CBS News security analyst Juan Zarate.
None of the e-mails specifically mentioned Hasan's plans for a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but because he was a member of the military the FBI showed them to a Pentagon investigator with the note "comm" written on it. To the FBI that meant "commissioned officer." The Pentagon investigator thought it meant "communication."
As a result, there were no red flags that an army officer was e-mailing a radical cleric suspected of being a talent spotter for al Qaeda.
Bottom line: the lessons of the Fort Hood shootings were not learned in time to avert the near disaster on Christmas day.
 THREE people have been arrested at London's Heathrow airport after a security scare on a Dubai-bound Emirates flight, police say, amid reports officers stormed the plane and took the suspects off. "Three people have been arrested at Heathrow this evening. They are currently in police custody. The airport remains open,'' a statement from London's Metropolitan Police Service said. Friday evening's alert came amid heightened security at airports around the world following an alleged attempt by a young Nigerian to bomb a plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day by concealing explosives in his underwear. Sky News television said police intervened after verbal threats were made and that the men arrested were English and appeared to be drunk. The broadcaster showed a photograph purportedly of officers in black overalls inside the aircraft, taken by a passenger on the flight. "Some special police just came on the plane and arrested these two guys a few rows in front of me,'' Mr McLean said. "The police just swarmed the guy and then rushed him out. I think he was a white male. There was another one as well, I didn't see him,'' he said. One of the men was taken off in handcuffs, Mr McLean said. The passenger added there were about five armed officers who were wearing helmets, body armour and carrying what appeared to be automatic weapons. A spokesman for airport operator BAA confirmed a "security incident'' on the plane but said it only affected the Dubai-bound Emirates plane. The alert came after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, allegedly tried to detonate a device stitched into his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day. In a court in Detroit on Friday, he pleaded not guilty to six charges related to the incident, which has led to security being stepped at airports worldwide. Full-body scanners are to be introduced at Britain's airports and Heathrow - one of the world's busiest air hubs - will be the first to receive the devices before the end of the month, Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said. The Australian
 TERROR suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab pleaded not guilty on Friday in a federal court in Detroit on a six-count indictment for allegedly attempting to blow up a Detroit-bound plane and murder its 279 passengers and 11 crew members. Mr Abdulmutallab entered the courtroom just before 2 pm Friday shackled by his feet and wearing a white T-shirt, khaki pants and blued shoes. He is accused of strapping explosives in his pants that failed to detonate and instead set him on fire on a Christmas day Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. His trip originated in Nigeria, where his father had earlier alerted authorities to his radical turn US officials had information that could have led them to block Mr Abdulmutallab from boarding the plane, Obama administration officials said yesterday, but intelligence analysts failed to assemble the picture of the plot. Representatives of the militant group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, have claimed credit for organising the attack. When asked, he told a judge he had taken pain medication in the last day Mr Abdulmutallab made his first appearance in court amid crowds of journalists. Scores of Muslim Americans held up anti-terrorism mantras on posters and waved large American flags outside the coutroom. A handful of Nigerian-born Americans joined in, with signs such as “Nigerians Are Against Terrorism.” Mr Abdulmutallab will remain detained but has the right to a hearing on the matter. His next appearance in court was not immediately set Friday. No new details were provided in an indictment earlier this week as to how the suspect was able to board a plane in Amsterdam with two types of explosives hidden in his pants, or how he gained a US visa. The Australian
 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 
 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
 An update on this story. "At Least 7 Killed After Coptic Christmas Mass In Egypt," from the Associated Press, January 6 Three men in a car sprayed automatic gunfire into a crowd of churchgoers in southern Egyptian as they left a midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas, killing at least seven people in a drive-by shooting, the church bishop and security officials said. Egypt's Interior Ministry said the attack Wednesday just before midnight was suspected as retaliation for the November rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man in the same town. The statement said witnesses have identified the lead attacker. Prior reporting described the accusation of rape as a rumor. Nonetheless, riots ensued. The attack took place in the town of Nag Hamadi in Qena province, about 40 miles from the famous ancient ruins of Luxor. A local security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that seven were dead and three seriously wounded. Bishop Kirollos of the Nag Hamadi Diocese told The Associated Press six male churchgoers and one security guard were killed. He said he had left St. John's church just minutes before the attack. "A driving car swerved near me, so I took the back door. By the time I shook hands with someone at the gate, I heard the mayhem, lots of machine gun shots," he said in a telephone interview. He said he saw five bodies lying on the ground when he first looked at the site of the shooting, about 600 yards where he was. The bishop said he was concerned about violence on the eve of Coptic Christmas, which falls on Thursday, because of previous threats following the rape of the 12-year-old girl in November. He got a message on his mobile phone saying: "It is your turn." "I did nothing with it. My faithful were also receiving threats in the streets, some shouting at them: 'We will not let you have festivities,"' he said. Because of the threats, he said he ended his Christmas Mass one hour early. He said Muslim residents of Nag Hamadi and neighboring villages rioted for five days in November and torched and damaged Christian properties in the area after the rape. "For days, I had expected something to happen on Christmas day," he said. The bishop said police have now asked him to stay at home for fear of further violence. [...] Clashes between Muslims and Christians are not uncommon in southern Egypt and in recent years have begun seeping into the capital. An Amnesty International report said sectarian attacks on the Coptic Christian community, comprising between 6 million and 8 million people in Egypt, increased in the year 2008. Sporadic clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims left eight people dead. Vendetta killing is also common among southern Egyptians, and is usually over land or family disputes. The bishop said he had an idea of who the attackers were, calling them "Muslim radicals." "It is all religious now. This is a religious war about how they can finish off the Christians in Egypt," he said.
 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
 US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has announced she will postpone her visit to Israel, which was slated for this week, due to public pressure on the government following the thwarted attempt to blow up an American airplane during Christmas and President Barack Obama's demand to hold an extensive investigation into aviation security measures and submit recommendations ahead of a White House hearing on the subject scheduled for Tuesday. Napolitano's deputy, Jane Lute and Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman will arrive in her place. The visit, slated for Wednesday, was planned as part of a round of meetings in several world capitals. The American delegation will leave to Europe on Monday and arrive in Israel Wednesday for coordination and educational meetings between professional echelons. Recently, Republican sources have been pressuring Napolitano to resign her post, following her slip of the tongue during an interview, in which she said that authorities managed security measures well following the attempted attack on the US-bound plane. A day after the interview, Napolitano retracted her statement and admitted that many breeches in the security establishment allowed for the Nigerian terrorist to board the flight. The goal of the American delegation that was to be headed by Napolitano was to coordinate security measures of US-bound flights around the world. Despite her absence from the upcoming meeting, Napolitano is slated to visit Israel in a few weeks to take part in a round of meetings between ministerial echelons. In accordance with increased American aviation security measures, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced it began conducting Monday new passenger screening procedures for passengers flying to the US. The new procedures include physical searches of passengers and their baggage, metal detectors and x-raying luggage. According to the TSA announcement, passengers holding Cuban passports as well as passports from 13 Arab countries including Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia will be subject to physical searches. YNet
 If you try to commit jihad murder, and you have the right connections, Barack Obama may have a sweet deal ready for you. "Brennan: Deal 'on the table' for terror suspect," from Politico, January 3 The U.S. Government is offering the suspect charged with attempting to bomb an aircraft on Christmas Day, Omar Abdulmutallab, some kind of incentives to share what he knows about Al Qaeda, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Sunday. Asked why Abdulmutallab should cooperate given his right, as criminal defendant, to remain silent, Brennan replied: "He doesn't have to but he knows there are certain things that are on the table... if he wants to engage with us in a productive manner, there are ways he can do that."... With thanks to JihadWatch
 A Muslim MP has opened up divisions within the Islamic community by saying it is reasonable for Muslims to be singled out for extra airport security measures following the Detroit bomb attempt.
Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said it had become necessary to 'profile' passengers from certain racial and religious groups in order to weed out possible terror suspects.
He said: "I think most people would rather be profiled than blown up. It wouldn't be victimisation of an entire community.
"I think people will understand that it is only through something like profiling that there will be some kind of safety.
"If people want to fly safely we have to take measures to stop things like the Christmas Day plot. Profiling may have to be the price we have to pay.
"The fact is the majority of people who have carried out or planned these terror attacks have been Muslims."
Muslim opinion on the subject was split yesterday, with some groups objecting to any such move for fear of alienating large sections of the community.
Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "It's not true that all terrorists are Muslims.
"Any such measure would not only alienate people, it would also be ineffective in terms of stopping terrorists. What's to stop them dressing up as orthodox Jews in order to evade profiling-based searches?"
However, many British Muslims now agree with Mr Mahmood.
(more)
Source: Daily Telegraph
With thanks to Islam in Europe
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U.S. intelligence officials believe there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of Americans who have been in e-mail contact with the radical Yemeni cleric who is believed to have inspired and directed both the Fort Hood shooter and the failed Christmas Day airline bomber, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. 
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