WASHINGTON: There are growing signs that a failed plot to blow up an aircraft may have represented one of the most serious terrorist threats in the US since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It comes two days after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was “no indication” the Nigerian student who allegedly tried to detonate explosives on the plane on Christmas Day was connected to a larger plot.
Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is charged with trying to destroy a Northwest Airlines jet traveling on Christmas Day from Amsterdam to Detroit. Authorities say he unsuccessfully tried to set off explosives hidden in his underwear as the plane was about to land in Detroit.
Yemen’s government, meanwhile, confirmed that Abdulmutallab was in the country from early August to early December after obtaining a visa to study Arabic at a language institute, claiming he had previously studied at the school.
As it became increasingly clear that Yemen was the origin of the attack, the White House weighed how it should respond.
There has been a frenzied reaction from many conservatives and Republicans on Capitol Hill, with some calling on the US to bomb Yemen.
Frances Townsend, former assistant to President George W. Bush who chaired the Homeland Security Council from 2004 to 2008, claimed in the Washington Post Americans were fed up with Yemen for harboring the terrorists that equipped Abdulmutallab. He suggested the US go to war with yet another Muslim nation.
National security experts and Republican lawmakers also criticized the Obama administration and called for changes to the airline screening system and the use of more intrusive technology to detect explosives.
Many critics said that the US government is too quick to rely on technology that may calm the public, but which terrorists can quickly outsmart.
“It is not just the billions of dollars, but the billions of hours people have spent in airports that have been wasted,” said editor of the Journal of Transportation Security Andrew Thomas. “There is no way we have gotten what we paid for.”
Director of the Center for Terrorism Law in Texas Jeffrey Addicott argued the emphasis should be on improving intelligence to prevent terrorists from getting onto planes, not to find bombs at checkpoints. “If you are trying to stop these people at the airport, you are too late,” he said.
Both point to the fact that the government has yet to fully deploy a sophisticated method of matching passenger names with terrorist watch lists, as well as the fact it has not finished changes that would make it harder for terrorists to sneak bombs into airport cargo holds.
A profile of Abdulmutallab is emerging. He apparently turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship, writing in an online forum that he was “lonely” and “never found a true Muslim friend.” “I have no one to speak too (sic),” he wrote in January 2005, when he attended boarding school. “No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems.”
Writing online under the name “farouk1986,” a combination of Abdulmutallab’s middle name and birth year, he pondered openly about love and marriage, his ambitions and angst over college tests, as well as his inner struggle as a devout Muslim between liberalism and extremism.
A US government official told reporters on Monday that federal intelligence officials were reviewing the online postings but had not independently confirmed their authenticity.
