Posted by 9jabook.com on December 30, 2009 at 8:52am
America, al-Qaeda and home-made bombs From shoes to soft drinks to underpants was culled and rewriteen from the Economist Magazine .
The attempted bombing of an airliner highlights gaps in intelligence-sharing and airport security
THE charred underpants of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tell the story of a terrorist attack averted only by luck. The 23-year-old son of a prominent Nigerian banker had hidden a fistful of high explosive in a package sewed into the crotch of his underwear. As Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day, with 290 people on board, he covered himself with a blanket and injected a chemical to detonate the explosive. Mr Abdulmutallab succeeded only in starting a fire, which was put out by passengers and the cabin crew as they wrestled him down.
Al-Qaeda’s latest attempt to blow up an America-bound airliner—after Richard Reid’s failed shoe-bomb in 2001, and the arrest in 2006 of Britons planning to destroy several aircraft with liquid explosives in soft-drink bottles—will bring yet more misery for travellers. Security queues immediately lengthened. Despite worries about privacy, there were calls for the introduction of full-body scanners to identify items under clothing that cannot be found with metal-detectors. Some passengers were even being told to stay in their seats, without blankets or even books on their laps, for the last hour of their flight.
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Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen quickly took the credit, hailing Mr Abdulmutallab as a “brother hero” for evading security screening and intelligence monitoring. More attacks were in the works: “With Allah’s permission, we will come to you from where you do not expect.”
Yet the attack should not have been unexpected. Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has been resurgent since it merged a year ago with the remnants of the decimated Saudi franchise to relaunch “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”, boosted by the influx of several veterans of Guantánamo Bay. It has moved from attacks against targets in Yemen to a regional agenda, and now to global jihad. A Yemeni preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, exchanged e-mails with Major Nidal Hasan, the American army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in November at a base in Fort Hood, Texas.
The Yemeni branch seems to have pioneered the underpants-bomb in August, when it nearly killed Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s deputy interior minister. Mr Abdulmutallab is said to have obtained the same explosive, known as PETN, in Yemen and carried it undetected as he travelled through Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria to Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, where he boarded flight 253.
Other chances to foil the attack were missed. Nigerian authorities, and the American embassy in Abuja, were told in November by Mr Abdulmutallab’s father that his son had become an extremist and had disappeared, maybe to Yemen. The younger Mr Abdulmutallab was placed on the least important of America’s four terrorism watch-lists, and he kept his multiple-entry visa to the United States.
In Britain, though, officials said Mr Abdulmutallab had “crossed the radar screen” of MI5, the domestic intelligence service, for radical links during his time as a mechanical-engineering student (and at one point president of the Islamic Society) at University College London between 2005 and 2008. He was placed on an immigration watch-list in May 2009, after he was denied another student visa for applying to a bogus college.
Why nobody linked all these danger signals is the subject of urgent investigation, and the cause of growing embarrassment for the Obama administration. Janet Napolitano, the homeland-security secretary, declared initially on December 27th that “the system has worked really very, very smoothly”, only to accept the next day that the system had in fact “failed miserably”. Then Barack Obama twice broke away from his holiday in Hawaii to speak in increasingly blunt terms about the “mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security”. Mr Abdulmutallab was a “known extremist”. The warning from his father had not been effectively distributed in the intelligence system; even without it there were other “bits of information” that should have raised red flags and kept him off planes flying to America. Officials say these “bits” included reports that an unnamed Nigerian was being prepared for an attack, and that al-Qaeda wanted to strike over Christmas. Mr Obama promised “accountability at every level”, and ordered that a preliminary review be completed by December 31st.
The blame game
Many Republicans already argue that Mr Obama is soft on terrorism; he prefers to denounce “violent extremists” than to refer to George Bush’s “war on terror”. Ms Napolitano has been mocked for talking of “man-caused” disasters—in order, she says, to avoid the politics of fear. The loudest complaints have been prompted by Mr Obama’s promise to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay (where nearly half the remaining detainees are Yemeni) and the decision to try five suspected terrorists (including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged September 11th mastermind) in civilian courts.
It is difficult, though, for Mr Obama’s opponents to make a persuasive case so soon after he decided to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. On his watch American drones and special forces have been busier than ever, not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan but also, it is reported, in Somalia and Yemen. Mr Obama restated that every element of America’s power would be used “to disrupt, to dismantle, and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us—whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the US homeland.”
Intelligence analysts reckon that strikes have weakened al-Qaeda’s “core” leadership in Pakistan’s lawless border region. Perhaps so. But al-Qaeda is adaptable, inventive and is seeking new bases. Joe Lieberman, the hawkish independent senator, says he was warned by an American official in Yemen: “Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act pre-emptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”
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Jonathan shuns Aso Rock food, drinks - Beware of ‘Abiola treatment’ - Groups warn VP - Yar’Adua dragged to UN - Nigeria’s challenges not beyond God - Jonathan
Donald Ojogo, Bureau Chief, South-South - 04.01.2010
THE raging succession battle arising from the long absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua due to ill-health appears to have taken a new twist, as the Vice-President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, has refrained from taking food and drinks served in the State House, Abuja.
Nigerian Tribune learnt authoritatively that the nation’s number two man has only been taking food prepared by his wife, Patience, in the last three weeks.
This development is coming on the heels of a warning from the Ijaw Monitoring Group (IMG), as well as the Ijaw National Congress (INC), that any attempt to hurt Jonathan would spell doom for the country.
The vice-president has maintained a dignified silence amidst calls for his resignation four weeks ago by some northern politicians, even as he has refused to be dragged in as pressure heightens that President Yar’Adua should resign to pave the way for Jonathan to take over in acting capacity.
Only three days ago, Jonathan, who spoke at the New Year Service in Abuja, maintained that the ship of state was sailing with Yar’Adua still in charge.
But the Nigerian Tribune learnt that behind the public show of statesmanship by the vice-president are very serious issues bothering him to the extent that he has resolved “not to take anything for granted.”
According to a highly-placed source in the Presidency, the vice-president’s determination to avoid food and drinks prepared in the Villa became manifest at a state function which was held quietly in the Villa without the prying eye of the press.
The event was the visit of a VIP from a tiny African country sharing some common economic links with Nigeria. Jonathan was said to have quietly turned down the request that he should be served food and drink at the event.
That, according to the source, was about the fifth time the vice-president would turn down such a request. Also at a political rally in one of the South-East states, Jonathan refused to eat and drink throughout the programme.
“ The only thing sure about Oga (Jonathan) is that, he will remain loyal to the president no matter the temptation and pressures from so many quarters; he can never betray him by falling for the temptation of those making moves to spite him and his office.
“I can tell you that they know what they are up to and the VP knows this much too, because whatever thing he does in reaction to their actions are capable of so many meanings.
“But the man has really decided that nothing should be taken for granted at all; that is why he has refrained from taking anything prepared in the Villa, at least for now till the return of the president, insha Allah, because nothing is impossible in this country and politicians can go to any length to stop anybody from becoming something. It has happened in this country before.”
Asked if the action of the vice-president did not have serious implications for mutual distrust, the source said: “Whatever that amounts to I do not know. But I can tell you too that it was distrust and an attempt to ridicule the vice-president that some hawks had to tell to the nation that the president, who they had not seen for over 40 days, had signed the nation’s budget.
“It will be in the interest of the nation if the same persons can show us the specimen signature of the president and then present to him again, the National Merit and Honours List for signature too.
Meanwhle, the IMG, in a statement by its coordinator, Comrade Joseph Evah, expressed fears that the vice-president’s life could be in danger.
“We have said this before and we will continue to say it that the life of the vice-president is in danger, because of the way and manner some powerful politicians are bent on subverting the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“IMG is fervently praying for the president to return home in good health and continue his efforts to change the face of the Niger Delta; but events in the last three weeks show that Jonathan is not wanted by some very influential politicians, who try to do anything to twist the constitution against the collective wish of the people of the country.
“In fact, we cannot be oblivious of the fact that this people can go to any extent, including giving Jonathan the infamous (MKO) Abiola treatment, just to have their way. But we must warn that events that will follow such an action will not be in the interest of the nation,” the statement said in part.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Jonathan has expressed optimism that Nigeria’s challenges as a nation are not beyond God.
Speaking at the Sunday service at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Central Parish, Abuja, on Sunday, Dr. Jonathan said the challenges “we may go through as children of God and as a nation signify that God is in charge of our lives.”
He clarified that when the nation was confronted with the challenge of the swearing-in of the new Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, God averted the confusion that the country might have found itself.
He also disclosed that the provision of the Oath Act, which empowers the sitting Chief Justice of Nigeria to swear in his successor, was evidence of God’s intervention.
Dr. Jonathan commended all Nigerians – both Christians and Muslims –– for their tremendous support and prayers for President Yar’Adua and all leaders at different levels and the country in general.
In his sermon, Pastor Elijah Daramola, whose message centred on grace, identified seven key roles which he said grace played in the life of Christians. He urged Christians to shun unrighteousness in order to enjoy the sufficient grace, which, according to him, God had provided in 2010.
Those with the Vice-President included the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Babatunde Omotoba; former deputy speaker House of Representatives, Chief Chibudom Nwuche, and some other government functionaries.
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