Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab: US Knew Suspect May Have Terrorist Ties, AP Reports

WASHINGTON An official briefed on the attack on a Detroit airliner said Saturday the U.S. has known for at least two years that the suspect in the attack could have terrorist ties.

The official told The Associated Press that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, has been on a list that includes people with known or suspected contact or ties to a terrorist or terrorist organization. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Read the charges against Mutallab (PDF).

The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list is maintained by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. It includes about 550,000 names.

People on that list are not necessarily on the no-fly list. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said Mutallab was not on the no-fly list.

King, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said no federal air marshals were on the flights from Nigeria to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Detroit. Mutallab did not go through full-body image screening at either airport, the congressman said.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Mutallab would have been re-screened at the Amsterdam airport after his flight from Nigeria. Thompson and others say the Amsterdam airport has long had a good reputation for security.

Thompson said he plans to hold a hearing in January about the incident.

"It's still safe to fly," Thompson said.

Comments

[CinC Cody]

02:52 AM on 12/28/2009

Is anybody aware of a petition going around by website or e-mail proposing looking for support to charge Umar Farouk Abdumutallab with 278 counts of "attempted murder," in addition to "attempting to destroy a jet airliner?"

[larmarch5]

08:41 PM on 12/26/2009

This may explain why it will take while to strengthen the competence of our government agencies. These people cannot simply be fired; they have to be evaluated and counseled to improve their performance. By now there may be two or three layers of management from the same ilk. Lots of good civil servants left the past 8 years.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0421-09.htm

[Cheryl Daringer]

06:25 PM on 12/26/2009

hmmmmm

[sixchair]

06:10 PM on 12/26/2009

A Nigerian man just aspired
To wreak havoc by islam inspired
And bring down a plane
In a great b@ll of flame
But just ended with great b@lz of fire!

[Edward Lucie-Smith]

06:06 PM on 12/26/2009

At Schipol (the airport for Amsterdam) passengers are screened at the actual gate for the flight they are about to board. This is not like American airports, or like Heathrow here in Britain, where you are screened before you reach the main concourse. As I recall, from a flight from Schipol to London a week ago, screening is carried out by employees of the airline concerned, not by specialists employed by the overall airport authority. Schipol, like Frankfurt and Heathrow, is one of the major European hubs, with flights arriving from, and departing to, all parts of the world.

[sixchair]

05:57 PM on 12/26/2009

A Nigerian man just aspired
To wreak havoc by islam inspired
And bring down a plane
In a great ball of flame
But just ended with great balls of fire!

[brigadere]

05:55 PM on 12/26/2009

All of these cases just prove over and over again how incompetent the government remains regardless of the party in charge. The guys father turned him in at an embassy and no one still found it necessary to at a minimum suspend his visa until they could investigate him further. It is not lack of information that gets Americans killed it is lack of intelligent people receiving the information. Until we take Americans out of the process and mechanize just about every step of the process of protecting our citizens we remain in the hands of idiots.

Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano and others on the security team have some explaining to do. Why can't they simply take action on information as it come in.

[jayjaga]

07:00 PM on 12/26/2009

That is the great question. This guy's father handed him over to the US embasssy, yet he was able to travel with his multiple entry visa obtained from the US embasssy in London since 2008.

No government official was able to cancel his visa. What was the state department doing with this information passed unto them by the suspects father? Methinks heads must roll in the state department so as not to repeat this type of blunder again.

[larmarch5]

08:27 PM on 12/26/2009

This time last year there were over 1 million on the watch list (remember Nelson Mandela was on it). Now it's down to 500K, but that's still too large. I'm sure the Obama admin is trying to get all the Boosh/Chainee political enemies removed (ACORN, Code Pink, Sierra Club, etc) but it's going to take a while, especially considering how many fundamentalist christian college grads they were so intent on hiring.

[darter22]

05:39 PM on 12/26/2009

So many names have been put on the no fly list for political purpose that maybe he just got lost in the crowd.

[Ralph Noyes]

06:00 PM on 12/26/2009

And police-type posters on threadslike these have been known to threaten or insinuate that they possess the power to get people put on the No-Fly list through their friends at TSA.

Airport security in the US is a politicized mess, undertrained and socially inappropriate workers, inadequate supervision '-- ie, leadership -- and ... well, do YOU trust the TSA, do you think they´re there to protect us, or to humiliate and abuse us, and to condition us to vote Republican.

I say the TSA is guilty of functioning as the Bush-Rove Theater of Political Fear.

They are too dysfunctional to deserve to survive.

[larmarch5]

08:28 PM on 12/26/2009

Hello there. This guy got on board in Amsterdam, not in America.

[LeaderofMen]

05:35 PM on 12/26/2009

This is why I don't care about this incident. It's IRRELEVANT. One incident in 1,000,000+ flights since 9/11 and the trolls are in a TIZZY. You have a better chance of being killed in an automobile accident than something like this. You have a better chance of being killed by a stray LIGHTENING strike than in an incident like this. You have a better chance of being killed by a HEART ATTACK than a plane being downed by a terrorist.

FEAR!!! Keep the people fearful!!! Spend billions of MY tax dollars to keep us AFRAID!!!

If world gov'ts won't bother to do anything about so-called terrorists, after they put so-called terrorists on their 'lists', then I do not need to be on alert for stray bags in an airport. Ever. So, stop the ridiculous recorded messages about being on permanent orange alert status and about us needing to be vigilant about other people's luggage. Stop making me take my shoes off.

Name one time in the last 8 years (since 9/11) when a passenger in any airport alerted 'officials' to a stray piece of luggage that amounted to anything.

[sposton]

06:07 PM on 12/26/2009

Terrorism certainly does not pose an existential threat to us unless you take into consideration our overreaction. Even a nuclear weapon cannot wipe us out. It can only kill a bunch of us but we are doing that each year with our own automobiles!

Terrorists spent a few hundred thousand for 911 and we've spent trillions of $$ on our reaction and have accepted a life in a constant fear. In that respect terrorists are clearly winning.

[Feanor]

10:17 PM on 12/26/2009

Word.

[sixchair]

06:08 PM on 12/26/2009

45,000 people will d!e without health insurance next year, according to Harvard. Just not so spectacularly.

[sposton]

05:14 PM on 12/26/2009

What's next? Taking our pants off? ;-)

[StonyStoner]

05:25 PM on 12/26/2009

U beat me to it.

[billhodges]

05:35 PM on 12/26/2009

What ever it takes to make the skies safe is fine with me.

[Mutande]

05:11 PM on 12/26/2009

John McCain just said, "I'm certain that Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction are behind this. We should track him down and if need be invade his country, arrest him, execute him, track him down and bring him to justice. Islam, not the people who practice it, is responsible for thei and the lie about global warming. And mark my words, if this healthcare bill passes, law abiding Christians will be subjected to death panels and once they're killed, their taxes will go up. It's incidents like this attempted bombing that are responsible for us never seeing Obama's Nigerian birth certificate.

[SurrealPumpkin]

05:20 PM on 12/26/2009

Rats! I missed the news conference.

But wasn't it Bachmann not McCain?

[Archivist1000]

05:25 PM on 12/26/2009

Mutande, that quote makes no sense at all ... where did you get that from? The Onion?

[sixchair]

05:37 PM on 12/26/2009

I think it's pp2 of the RNC platform

[larmarch5]

08:32 PM on 12/26/2009

It was just on Fox Noose. Check it out.

[RSKaz]

05:08 PM on 12/26/2009

Remind me again how the previous administration "kept us safe."

[andyg]

05:35 PM on 12/26/2009

spying programs, stopped now that the war on terror over, acording to the president.

[KDog76A]

05:42 PM on 12/26/2009

which one was stopped?

[KDog76A]

05:45 PM on 12/26/2009

yeah, it would have been a much better idea not to try at all. what does Bush have to with this guy? there are hundreds of thousands of people on watch lists.

live in the now, Obama is our president, its his job to keep of safe, and I trust he'll do his best

[jamaicalover]

04:55 PM on 12/26/2009

The article says he wasn't on the no fly list. Wonder why.

[KDog76A]

05:46 PM on 12/26/2009

because nothing he himself did deemed him a suspected terrorist. at most his name was remotely connected to asomeone who was a known radical

[larmarch5]

08:33 PM on 12/26/2009

There are 500,000 on the watch list. Wonder how many are on the no-fly list.

[mcfried]

04:52 PM on 12/26/2009

"The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list ...includes about 550,000 names.....People on that list are not necessarily on the no-fly list."
Sure but babies and aging rock stars are - this is pathetic. These a-holes need to stop seeing who has the biggest d--k and start doing their job. That said my guess is instead they will issue a new rule that we all need to drop our pants before boarding an aircraft..... Id!ots.

[megacephalus]

04:40 PM on 12/26/2009

It is time to set aside the 'feel good' P.C. framework of this ongoing discussion and accept that we are at war with a movement. It is called Islam... or, more accurately, Koran driven, Islam the culture - and it is more that than simply 'a religion' - it is a way of life - has chosen to be at war with the Post-Enlightenment West. Period.

[sixchair]

04:52 PM on 12/26/2009

Post Enlightenment? Dang, I missed that one.
Not a very enlightened post.

[TFlint]

04:55 PM on 12/26/2009

It is a sound, clearly stated opinion.

[GeorgeKaplan]

05:07 PM on 12/26/2009

And its also time to put aside the ridiculous idea of a Holy War. You are wrong.