U.S. hunts for English-speaking bombers

U.S. and allied counterterrorism authorities have launched a global manhunt for English-speaking terrorists trained in Yemen who are planning attacks on the United States, based on intelligence provided by the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing after he began cooperating. U.S. officials told The Washington Times that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, facing charges as a would-be suicide bomber, revealed during recent cooperation with the FBI that he met with other English speakers at a terrorist training camp in Yemen. Three U.S. intelligence officials, including one senior official, disclosed on the condition of anonymity some details of the additional bomb plots.

Said one official: "It's safe to say that Abdulmutallab is not the only bullet in the chamber for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," the Islamist terrorist group based in Yemen. "Farouk took a month to get operational. Once he left [training in Yemen], it did not take very long." Information about the bomb plots was shared with the FBI after Mr. Abdulmutallab's family traveled from Nigeria to help coax the former student into cooperating, after a period of about five weeks when he refused to help authorities.

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Nigerian underwear bomber: 10 terror suspects held

Police last week acted quickly to forestall a serious threat to national security when they nabbed 10 terror suspects with links to international terrorist organisations. The nine foreigners and a Malaysian were also believed to be linked to a Nigerian student who attempted to blow up a US-bound flight on Christmas Day. Among the foreigners nabbed here were several Nigerians but the authorities are tight-lipped over the details. The 10 suspects were members of a religious group linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, the Nigerian who was arrested in the United States after he attempted to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear on board Northwest Airlines flight 253, which was bound for Detroit from Amsterdam.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the nine foreigners had only just arrived here when they were nabbed. “They would not have had time to do much and establish themselves here, They posed a serious security threat to the country and have been detained under the Internal Security Act.” He, however, refused to reveal the nationalities of the foreign suspects and organisation they were affiliated to. He said police were tipped off by international anti-terrorism agencies and swung into action. He said terrorist threats were a serious matter regardless of whether they were directed at Malaysia.

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Mass of Data, Analysis Failures Main Culprits of Christmas Day Attack

The botched terrorist attack on Christmas Day was a failure of intelligence analysis and not information sharing, the two former chairs of the 9-11 Commission testified today. "The greatest single challenge that arises from this incident in our view is the urgent need to strengthen the analytic process," former Rep. Lee Hamilton and former Gov. Tom Kean said in prepared testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

They were joined by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Director of the National Counterterroism Center Michael E. Leiter, both of whom testified earlier this morning before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Reform with Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence. Members of both committees focused on how to correct the intelligence and security failures that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, to board a flight from Amsterdam with high explosives sewn into his underwear, despite numerous indicators that should have landed him on the country's No-Fly List.

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I’m the first of many, warns airline ‘bomber’

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a terrorist cell led by a former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden, issued a statement saying that the failed attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a response to American-backed airstrikes on the group in Yemen this month. Yemeni government forces, acting on US intelligence and using what officials have admitted was American military hardware, launched air raids on suspected militants in the east of the country on December 17 and again on December 24. At least 60 people were understood to have been killed.

Mr Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who set himself alight in a packed Airbus approaching Detroit on Christmas Day, bought his one-way ticket from a KLM office in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, on December 16, indicating that his attack was planned well before these latest air raids. A US military effort to deny al-Qaeda a stronghold in Yemen has been under way for at least a year.

The fresh-faced engineering graduate was transferred yesterday from hospital in Detroit to a federal prison in Milan, Michigan, where agents questioning him said he told them that he was one of many bombers being groomed by the Yemeni alQaeda affiliate to attack American-bound aircraft, according to ABC News. The Yemeni authorities confirmed yesterday that Mr Abdulmutallab had been in the country since August.

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