MUSLIM BOMB PLOTS IN AMERICA!
Obama: 'We Will Not Rest' Until Perpetrators of Airline Attack Are Found
Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility for the Botched Bombing of Christmas Flight
By PIERRE THOMAS, TAHMAN BRADLEY and HUMA KHAN
ABC News
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2009
President Obama promised today that the country would "not rest until"
the people behind the the plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight
on Christmas Day were caught and brought to justice.
"We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them
accountable," Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii with his family,
said. "This was a serious reminder of the dangers that we face and the
nature of those who threaten our homeland."
"We will continue to do everything that we can to keep America safe in the new year and beyond," the president added.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- a Nigerian national who had been on the
U.S. government's terrorist watch list but not on its no-fly list ---
was arrested Christmas Day after authorities say he tried to ignite
explosives he carried in his underwear in an attempt to destroy the
Detroit-bound passenger aircraft.
Shortly before Obama vowed to go after the perpetrators of the attempt,
an al Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the botched bombing.
A husband and wife who were on the flight said they saw Abdulmutallab
with a wealthy looking man at the check-in gate, and said it appeared
the older man was trying to help him get past security.
Kurt Haskell, a Michigan attorney who spoke with ABC News this
afternoon, said the two seemed to be an incongruous pair, because
Abdulmutallab looked to him like a poor teenager, not someone the other
man, who he described as "Indian, but to me Indian may be Pakistani or
Bangladesh or something similar," would likely be with.
FBI officials in Detroit have not commented on the couple's claim.
The president's remarks today came shortly after al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack, a message that
has led the FBI, CIA and the entire U.S. intelligence community to
begin an intensive scrub down and go back and look at all the
Yemen-related threat intel to see if they have missed anything, or
dismissed anything that they should not have.
Security workers leave Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands on
Saturday Dec. 26, 2009. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, inset, a Northwest
Airlines passenger from Nigeria who claimed to be acting on orders from
al-Qaida, set off an explosive device on a Christmas Day flight in a
failed terrorist attack on the plane as it was landing in Detroit, US
Federal officials said. The suspect boarded in Nigeria and went through
Schiphol airport in Amsterdam en route to Detroit. Dutch anti-terrorism
authorities said the U.S. has asked all airlines to take extra
precautions on flights worldwide that are bound for the United States.
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The agencies launched the internal review almost immediately after the
failed attempt and today, sources tell ABC News, a statement from al
Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula telling Americans that "we will strike
you with what you have no previous knowledge of, for as you kill you
shall be killed, our vengeance is near," is creating more concern.
Senior officials tell ABC News that this threat released today is
receiving intense scrutiny from all agencies and the White House.
Officials are trying to figure out how to respond.
"This is a dangerous group and we need to take them seriously. They
were not specific about their plans, but that clearly was intentional,
so as not to tip their hand," one intelligence source told ABC News.
This could be a scare tactic or propaganda, the official said. but he
added many do not feel the group is making an "idle threat."
The group is based in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and said the attempted
Christmas day bombing was in retaliation a Dec. 17 U.S. bombing of
their training sites in Yemen.
However, a senior administration official rejected the group's claim
about retaliation, pointing out that the bomber, a 23-year-old Nigerian
named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was in the field long before that
airstrike.
"He had been deployed before Dec. 17," the official told ABC News' Jake
Tapper. "They'd like to make this seem like retaliation, but the reason
they tried to blow up the plane is because they have a hateful,
murderous agenda. And that's why we're on the forward lean against
them."
In a statement posted on the internet, the al Qaeda group said it gave explosives to terror suspect Abdulmutallab.
"He managed to penetrate all devices and modern advanced technology and
security checkpoints in international airports bravely without fear of
death," the group said in the statement.
The device, however, failed to detonate and instead set Abdulmutallab on fire.
The government of Yemen issued a statement today confirming that
Abdulmutallab was in Yemen from early August to early December 2009 to
study Arabic at a language institute, and that his passport had a valid
U.S. visa.
The statement also said investigations are being conducted by Yemeni
security agencies to identify any other individuals who may be linked
to him, and immediate action would be taken against any accomplices
determined.
The government statement said Yemen condemns "such criminal acts that
kill innocent civilians" and that it "is and remains an active partner
of the international community in the war against terrorism. Efforts of
Yemeni security agencies to continue ongoing operations and
prosecutions against terrorist operatives from Al-Qaeda will not
falter."
White House officials say the president has been briefed regularly and
has held secured conference calls with administration officials. But he
has no plans to change his travel schedule, a move that has drawn
criticism from some Republicans who say the Obama administration hasn't
done enough to prevent such terror attacks.
Obama today commended passengers for their "quick and heroic actions,"
and said he has announced additional security measures on flights, such
as adding air marshals. The president has also ordered a review of the
incident and of the U.S. "watch list system and how it can be
strengthened."
Just a day after she told ABC News the "system has worked really very,
very smoothly over the course of the past several days," Department of
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano flip-flopped and admitted
that changes need to be made to the passenger screening system.
"Clearly, there's some work that needs to be done to link up what we
call the tie, the generic base in which his name had been entered, to
those who already have visas," Napolitano said on "Good Morning
America" today. "We want to go backward now and review our list
processes. ... They clearly need to be adjusted. We need to look at
this individual specially, and the screening technology that was
deployed."
Obama today said he has directed his national security team to "keep up pressure on those who would attack the country."
Heightened Security in the Wake of Christmas Day Incident
U.S. security agencies are scrambling to determine what went wrong in the screening process.
Abdulmutallab was on the U.S. government's terrorist watch list but not
on its no-fly list, which would have prevented him from boarding
Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit.
He was also placed on the United Kingdom's watch list after he was refused a student visa 14 months ago.
The terror suspect is being held in a federal prison near Detroit as
airports remain on high alert and the U.S. government tries to
determine if the man is was one in a series of possible attackers.
British Home Secretary Alan Johnson said today he did not believe
Abdulmutallab had been acting alone, and that police and security
services in Britain were examining whether he was radicalized while
studying at University College London between 2005 and 2008.
The incident was a signal that the U.S. government needs to review the
process by which individuals such as Abdulmutallab, are placed on
security lists, Napolitano said.
"One of the things that we are doing is going backward. What were the
facts that led up to this event, how did this individual get on the
plane, why wasn't he flagged at a higher screening level, how did he
get an explosive substance onto the plane," Napolitano said on "GMA"
today.
In May 2009, a report by the Justice Department Inspector General found
problems with how the FBI was managing the terrorism watch list,
noting, "We found that the FBI failed to nominate many subjects in the
terrorism investigations that we sampled, did not nominate many others
in a timely fashion and did not update or remove watch list records as
required. Specifically, in 32 of the 216 (15 percent) terrorism
investigations we reviewed, 35 subjects of these investigations were
not nominated to the consolidated terrorist watch list, contrary to FBI
policy."
The Bomber's Family Had Warned the U.S.
Napolitano's remarks on Sunday to CNN brought a sharp rebuke from Rep.
Peter King of New York, the top Republican on the Homeland Security
Committee.
"It's not reassuring when the secretary of Homeland Security says the system worked," King said. "It failed in every respect."
The Senate Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing next month to examine U.S. security measures.
"We were very lucky this time, but we may not be so lucky next time,
which is why our defenses must be strengthened," committee chairman
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said in a written statement. "What we know
about the Abdulmutallab case raises two big, urgent questions that we
are holding this hearing to answer: Why aren't airline passengers
flying into the U.S. checked against the broadest terrorist database
and why isn't whole body scanning technology that can detect explosives
in wider use?"
Abdulmutallab's family had warned U.S. authorities of the increased
radicalization of their son, a student at a London university until
2008. His father went to the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Abuja
Nov. 19 to report that he believed his son was being radicalized in
Yemen, according to a senior State Department official.
On Nov. 20, the embassy sent out a cable to U.S. embassies worldwide
and to the U.S. counterterrorism community alerting them to the
information that was provided by Abdulmutallab's father. An
intelligence source told ABC News the cable from the State Department
noted that the father expressed concern about his son's association
with extremists.
There are hundreds of walk-ins to embassies reporting various threats.
The State Department's cable triggered the entry into a database run
and maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, but no further
threat information was entered because the State Department cable did
not contain any specific information about who the son was associated
with and the threat they posed.
One senior State Department official did not dispute the possibility --
but could not confirm -- that the State Department may not have
realized in November that the individual already held a U.S. visa but
noted that someone else in the government, such as security or
counterterrorism agencies, would also have had access to that
information.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelley said that despite the information
provided by the suspect's father, the counterterrorism community
determined there was "insufficient" evidence to warrant pulling his
U.S. visa. This was not Abdulmutallab's first U.S. visa and he had
traveled to the United States under a previous visa.
Abdulmutallab has warned that there are more men like him but U.S.
officials have no evidence that the incident was one in a wave of
planned attacks. Officials will take Abdulmutallab's DNA sample later
today, a fairly routine procedure in a case like this.
A hearing was scheduled for Abdulmutallab today, but a spokesperson for
federal prosecutors said it was canceled. There will be a preliminary
hearing Jan. 8.
What Happened on Flight 253 Christmas Day?
Abdulmutallab's mission was already in full effect the moment he boarded the plane in Amsterdam, according to ABC News sources.
He had a visa to enter the United States despite his being on the
terror watch list. And he paid $3,000 in cash to purchase his ticket,
checking no luggage.
Once on the plane, Abdulmutallab walked to seat 19A, next to the wing,
and above the fuel tank, apparently choosing the location to maximize
the chances of bringing the plane down.
He wanted to blow up the plane over the airport so investigators would
find evidence that it was terrorism, the sources said. He went into
action just before landing, going to the bathroom and staying there for
20 minutes.
He came back to his seat complaining of a stomachache and covered
himself with a blanket. Soon, passengers started noticing fire emitting
from his pants.
"There was a bang," passenger Elias Fawaz recalled. "Sounded at first like a balloon went off."
As Abdulmutallab was trying to detonate the bomb in his lap, the wall of the plane caught fire, passengers said.
"I'm sitting here, the flames were leaping up at least this high," said Daniel Huisinga, putting his hands above his head.
The Nigerian national had packed 80 grams of the explosive
pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, the same kind that shoe-bomber
Richard Reid used, but even more powerful. But the explosives sewn into
Abdulmutallab's underwear failed to ignite, and passengers subdued
Abdulmutallab.
One passenger recalled the flight attendant's emotional announcement when the nightmare was over.
"He was just shaking and crying in the speaker, saying, 'The situation
is taken care of, the fire is out,'" passenger Richelle Keepman said.
Napolitano said the administration is beginning to deploy new technology at airports.
"There will be lessons learned that we deal with and fix. And that
process is ongoing, and as you might imagine, it's ongoing at lightning
speed," she said on "GMA." "We are going to get to the bottom of this."
Some experts said while the United States already has new technology to
combat this issue, it's not available nationwide, and it's very
expensive and considered by some to be intrusive.
"Fewer than 5 percent of the screening posts at airports have the
technology necessary to find this sort of thing. The technology exists,
but it costs a lot of money, and it's very intrusive and some people
think that it invades their privacy," ABC News consultant and former
counterterrorism official Richard Clarke said on "GMA." "If we had this
expensive, intrusive equipment at all screening posts, we might have
been able to stop this."
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab Increasingly Radicalized
Abdulmutallab's family had warned U.S. authorities of the increased
radicalization of their son, a student at a London university until
2008. His father, a former Nigerian banker, had become concerned about
his son's disappearance and lack of communication while studying
abroad. He first contacted Nigerian security agencies about two months
ago, and then some foreign security agencies about a month and a half
ago, to seek assistance in finding and returning him home.
"It was while we were waiting for the outcome of their investigation
that we arose to the shocking news of that day," the family said in a
statement. "The disappearance and cessation of communication which got
his mother and father concerned to report to the security agencies are
completely out of character and a very recent development, as before
then, from very early childhood, Farouk, to the best of parental
monitoring, had never shown any attitude, conduct or association that
would give concern. As soon as concern arose, very recently, his
parents reported it and sought help."
Experts say men such as Abdulmutallab, who live seemingly normal lives, are hard to identify and target.
"This is the truly disturbing part," Clarke said. "They are normal one
day and then after a few weeks of watching the Internet and watching al
Qaeda videotapes on the Internet, they become radicalized. They reach
out in the real world for al Qaeda connections. They get trained.
"It's very hard to see these self-initiating terrorists become
terrorists, very hard for U.S. intelligence to pick them up," Clarke
added.
The United States needs to move quickly on identifying to whom
Abdulmutallab was connected, and address the flaws in the security
system that caused this to happen, experts said.
"It's clearly a wake-up call, and it's just like any other crime or
criminal behavior. People are always trying to figure out ways around
the system and al Qaeda or terrorists or people who want to blow things
up are no different," Former FBI agent Brad Garrett told ABC News.
"But, the key is: You want to sort that out as quickly as you can
because if he is connected to someone else, what other bad acts might
be out there waiting to happen?"
Clarke said the Obama administration needs to work more closely with
the government of Yemen, which some say has emerged as the new front in
terrorism.
"I think we do two things. Long term we work with our Arab friends in
the area to address their economic problems and their political
instability problems," Clarke said. "Short term, we work with CIA and
Defense Department assets and the government of Yemen to go in and find
these al Qaeda cells.
"And the untold story here is that the Obama administration is ahead of
the curve. The Obama administration has been in Yemen working top CIA
officials, top White House officials for over nine months now, working
there trying to find these al Qaeda cells and they've done a good job
of finding them and attacking them," Clarke said.
The Christmas Day terror attempt has sparked fears of additional
bombers in the sky, and an incident Sunday was an indication that even
a small matter can unleash a huge government response.
On the same Detroit-bound route two days later, a passenger who spent
too much time in the bathroom after getting sick caused a full-scale
security alert. Every inch of the plane was searched but the real issue
turned out to be food poisoning.
As travelers head back home after the holidays in what is expected to
be one of the busiest travel days this year, passengers can expect to
see additional security measures and long lines, possibly even causing
delays.
ABC News' Kirit Radia and Jason Ryan contributed to this report.