WASHINGTON/LAGOS: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watch list with a US visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
The Obama administration has ordered investigations into the two areas of aviation security — how travelers are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened — as critics questioned how the 23-year-old Nigerian man charged in the airliner attack was allowed to board the Dec. 25 flight.
A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context. “Our system did not work in this instance,” she said on NBC television’s “Today” show. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.” Billions of dollars have been spent on aviation security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when commercial airliners were hijacked and used as weapons. Much of that money has gone toward training and equipment that some security experts say could have detected the explosive device that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of hiding on his body during the flight.
Abdulmutallab has been charged in federal court with trying to detonate the device as the aircraft approached Detroit. The device burst into flames instead, according to authorities, and he was subdued by passengers. The plane landed safely. Harold Demuren, the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, said Abdulmutallab paid cash on Dec. 16 for the $2,831 round-trip ticket from Lagos to Detroit via Amsterdam. He said Abdulmutallab’s ticket came from a KLM office in Accra, Ghana.
Demuren said Abdulmutallab checked into his flight with only a small carryon bag. Law enforcement officials say he tucked below his waist a small bag holding his potentially deadly concoction of liquid and powder explosive material. Abdulmutallab had been placed in a US database of people suspected of terrorist ties in November, but there was not enough information about his activity that would place him on a watch list that could have kept him from flying.
However, British officials placed Abdulmutallab’s name on a UK watch list after he was refused a student visa in May.
Abdulmutallab’s family said Monday that he cut off all ties with his relatives until they awoke to news of the attack. His father first reached out to Nigerian security agencies two months ago and a month later to foreign security agencies about his concerns that his son had disappeared and ceased contact with the family, the family said in a statement. US authorities said that in November, Abdulmutallab’s father visited the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss his concerns about his son’s religious beliefs.
Abdulmutallab told US officials who arrested him that he had sought extremist training in Yemen. The family said the father had gone to authorities to ask them to bring his son home. “We provided them with all the information required of us to enable them do this,” the family statement said.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on Monday claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was to avenge US attacks on the group in Yemen. In a statement posted on websites, the group said it had provided Abdulmutallab with a “technically advanced device” but that it had failed to detonate because of a technical fault.
The group also urged the killing of Western embassy workers in the region as part of an “all out war on Crusaders.”
