The following is a report by the UK Telegraph: Tough questions need to be asked of not just the US security agencies – such as the CIA and the FBI – but also of Britain’s MI6, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorist unit.
How can a Muslim student, whose name appears on a US law enforcement database, be granted a visa to travel to America, allegedly acquire an explosive device from Yemen, a country awash with al-Qaeda terrorists, and avoid detection from the world’s most sophisticated spy agencies?
Every intelligence agency across the world is fully aware that the targets of choice for al-Qaeda and its numerous affiliates and sympathisers are airliners – preferably those flying to the US. Yet Abdulmutallab seems to have avoided detection in both Nigeria and Holland when he passed through the various security checks at Lagos and Schiphol airports respectively.
Embarrassingly for Washington, Lagos airport had recently been given the “all clear” by the US’s Transportation Security Administration, an agency established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks which was supposed to improve the security on American airliners.
Attacking airlines is not exactly new territory for al-Qaeda. After 9/11, Richard Reid, a British Muslim convert, tried to blow up a transatlantic airliner by detonating explosives hidden in his shoes. More recently, Britain was the base for the so-called liquid bomb plot when a group of British Islamists plotted to destroy up to 10 US bound airliners in a series of attacks designed to kill thousands.
As 9/11 showed, for a relatively cheap outlay- the cost of the operation was estimated at round £300,000 – the impact of an airline attack can be global: the desired conclusion for every al-Qaeda mission.
Yet Abdulmutallab, a 23-year Nigerian, who US officials said studied mechanical engineering at University College in London, came frighteningly close to committing a terrorist atrocity undetected.
MI5, Britain’s security service, will be spending the next few weeks frantically trying to discover whether Abdulmutallab had, at any time, appeared on their radar.
The service will want to know whether he was a complete unknown or if he was one of the 2,000-plus “persons of interest” MI5 currently has on its books and who are believed to be associated with al-Qaeda in some capacity.
There will be further concern and some embarrassment within MI5 and the British government if it emerges that Abdulmutallab entered the country with a student visa.
There is a belief within some quarters of Whitehall that the visa offer potential terrorists easy access into the UK where they can recruit support and plot attacks. If it is established for definite that the suspect did study in the UK, MI5 will be keen to discover if he was a terrorist before he entered Britain in 2005 or whether he was radicalised in the UK.
Any Yemen connection brings an international dimension to the plot and suggests that this “near miss” was a conspiracy and not the work of one man acting alone. Such a notion will prove hugely worrying for the US and Britain because it would suggest that al-Qaeda have managed to create another international, and as yet unknown, network capable of planning and mounting attacks.
The US has an important and sensitive relationship with Yemen, a rare western ally in the Gulf region and a country fighting an insurgency against Islamist radicals. CIA drones have killed al-Qaeda operatives based in the country and just last week two terrorist leaders were reported to have been died in a Yemeni air force attack.
The simplicity of the latest plot – another al-Qaeda hallmark – could also lead to changes into the way passengers are body searched in the future.
Reports suggest that Abdulmutallab was able to carry the powdery substance undetected by concealing it on the inside of his upper thigh, close to his groin – an area likely to avoid detection even by the most conscientious of security officials. It would appear that he was allowed to take a syringe containing a liquid on board the aircraft by apparently taking advantage of airlines’ policy of allowing diabetics to inject themselves during flight. Changes of some sort to passenger travel would seem to be a certainty.
British Airways has already announced that hand baggage has been reduced to one item following the attack.
Whether Abdulmutallab was directed by al-Qaeda – as he initially claimed to US investigators but later denied – or whether his connections were more “aspirational” remains to be seen.
But what this incident demonstrates is that despite all the improvements in security since 9/11, determined terrorists can and will continue to mount terrorists attacks against western targets – and one day they will succeed.
(Source: Telegraph UK)
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16 Responses
Like so many failures under the current terrorist-loving administration, this will be “George Bush’s fault”. (Global warming; record snow in Texas…) Where is Sen. Chuckiecheese Schumer when we need him?
He should ask PINO Obama to tell the American public exactly and fully why he has spent over a million dollars for lawyers trying to keep anybody from finding out anything about his birth, his academic records – including student aid applications – and his medical records. Apparently he applied as a “foreign student” = ‘that ain’t American to me’. Is he a covert Moslem???
TRUTH from our President- – – what a novel idea’!
We’ll never know who was behind this attack, because we are not permitted to inconvenience would be terriorts by water-boarding, or any other stronger type of interrigation technique. After all, Obama doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. And surely we wouldn’t want to incomfort them by putting them in Gitmo. We’re likely to see a lot more incidents like this.
May Hashem save us, not only from terrorists of all ilks, but from liberals who “feel” for them.
Did our dear president say we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,maybe it was just an isolated attack.
#3 I certainly hope you were being sarcastic!
#4 that’s what the president just said when the arab terrorist murdered 15 american soldiers in the army base.
stzc, unfortunately yehudah y d couldn’t be more correct.
Until the U.S. government is willing not to be intimidated by Arab lobbyists are start profiling and targeting Muslims for searches, until we don’t reform our immigration laws and repeal the 1965 Immigration Act that did away with quotas and preferential immigration from Western Europe, this type of thing unfortunately will re-occur again and again, and again…. chas v’shalom.
I urge everyone to go to the video section of this website and look for Moshe Feiglin’s response to the President. That tragically says it all.
May we not know anymore of such occurences.
Flatbush Bubby – I see your point. I will also check out the video you mentioned.
By the way, I responded to your other comment to me on the other story.
A Gut Voch to you.
Oh – I think I have to clear something up. I was just re-reading the comments and I think that my comment was misunderstood.
When I wrote comment #4, I had thought that yehudah y d was giving his opinion and agreeing with the president. I didn’t see his response to me before I answered flatbush bubby. Now I realize he was just quoting the pres. (aka idiot in chief). So really, I think the three of us are on the same page. Right? Or did I just confuse everything more? 🙂 Sorry, I’m just tired.
Palin in ’12!!
Profiling in ’10
Peace NOW!
Maybe the Queen of England, the president of the USA , the muslim “terrorist” and the passinger that jumped on him should have not a beer but a tea party in London to find out how he managed to do it and to ask him for mechilah for foiling his martyr plans.
Flatbush Bubby: I can’t find the video. Can you post a link, or at least give the title of the story to which it is attached?
As far as I know, he didn’t pass any security checks in Holland, since he didn’t get off the plane there.
It was an ongoing flight from Nigeria to Detroit with a stop in Amsterdam. I don’t assume airports check the people inside flights that merely stop there.
If I take a flight, let’s say, from New York to Sydney via Los Angeles, and I fly from New York to Sydney, am I going to be checked by the security in Los Angeles? I’d be rather surprised.
I once (years ago, long before 9/11) flew from Tel Aviv to Chicago with a stop in Amsterdam. We all had to get off the plane with all our carry-on stuff. Anybody who stayed at the gate did not have to go through another security check. Those of us who chose to leave the gate and enter the terminal had to leave all possesions except passport, boarding pass and money. We had to go through a metal detector to enter the terminal from the gate and their were armed guards there. On the way back we had to go through metal detectors again and get frisked. It was the strictest pre-9/11 security I ever encountered.
haifagirl, the video is on http://www.theyeshivaworld.com. Just type in Moshe Feiglin’s response to Obama in the search box and the video will pop up immediately.
stzc, it is okay. I am so honored that you and Mr. Levin are blogging here along with so many others.
Just wish I could gather up more bloggers to go hock the group that blog on as akuperma. And to quote Mr. Levin,”That’s right, I said it. Now you can go spread it all over the Internet.”
Akuperma is not just one blogger. akuperma is a group of bloggers that are associated with the Association for Communities Organizing for Reform Now and with the Service Employees International Union. They monitor this site so they are able to view the latest trends with the JEWS and are able to manipulate our minds to better able to control the Jewish voter and to hang on the Jewish electoral base of the Democratic Party. When I accused akuperma of that he or she or they responded that I was being rude and loosing focus of the discussion.
Now, what did Paul Revere say on his midnight ride to Lexington and Concord?
Thanks FB. I found it. It really is a great video.
Flatbush Bubby,
I can’t believe you would support the racist pre-1965 immigration laws that kept Jews stuck in Europe during the Shoah. It is attitudes like that that keep Jews voting Democratic.