Disturbing questions in thwarted US plane bombing

[Karmadillo]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/plne-d28.shtml

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In November, or six months ago (press accounts differ), Abdulmutallab’s father, a retired banker and former Nigerian government minister, told US Embassy officials in the Nigerian capital that he was concerned about his son’s extreme religious views and activities. The Washington Post on Sunday quoted a “senior administration official” as saying the father had warned of his son’s “radicalization and associations.” Some press reports say the father also spoke with US intelligence officials and Nigerian security agencies.

The family had evidently lost contact with Abdulmutallab, who six months ago said he was breaking off relations. Family members reportedly said they believed he had gone to Yemen, the birthplace of his mother.

US officials say that as a result of the father’s warning, Abdulmutallab was placed on a counter terrorism database in November, but they nevertheless had no actionable grounds for barring him from flying or subjecting him to any special pre-boarding search or questioning.

The media is dutifully and uncritically parroting these explanations, but they strain credulity. Since 9/11, there have been innumerable reports of people being barred from flying by government security officials for no apparent reason. One of these was the late Senator Edward Kennedy, who in 2004 was placed on the Homeland Security Department’s “no-fly” list and prevented from boarding a shuttle from Washington DC to Boston.

Yet despite being identified as a potential terrorist threat by his own father, a highly placed former Nigerian official, Abdulmutallab was allowed to retain his multi-entry US visa, board a plane to the US, and smuggle explosives on board.

The incident is all the more disturbing and suspicious, coming just weeks after President Obama announced a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and singled out Yemen and Somalia as alleged Al Qaeda bases where US military attack could be justified.

This episode has the appearance of another in a series of ostensible security lapses which have more the character of deliberately turning a blind eye than mere incompetence. The case of Abdulmutallab seems to follow a well-established pattern dating back to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. A number of the hijack-bombers were known to US intelligence and security officials as Al Qaeda operatives, and were nevertheless allowed to enter the country, train as pilots, and eventually board the doomed airliners on 9/11. Warnings of impending terror attacks involving the hijacking of airplanes went unheeded.

None of this has ever been explained. No one has been held accountable. Instead, numerous government investigations were carried out, culminating in the 9/11 Commission report, which whitewashed government agencies and officials. Notwithstanding Obama’s pledge to investigate last week’s attempted terror attack, the 9/11 pattern will likely be repeated.

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[NJmaverick]

1. I think the evidence that he had turned to terrorism was pretty weak

The source, who lives at the family home in Kaduna in northern Nigeria, said the son informed his family in the text message that he was leaving school in Dubai to move to Yemen. He implied that he was leaving "for the course of Islam

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/12/27/airline.attack.security/index.html

[Windy]

2. Please don't post this garbage. There is no LIHOP scenario here.

Please get a grip. Instead, why don't you do some reading on Al Q and terrorism.
The threat is real and has been for quite some time.

The difference between bush and Obama is that he is not using the unfortunate event to try and frighten the people. If he wanted to do that, he would have been on TV as Bushco did, immediately, playing the fear card. We now have adults in charge and the media doesn't like it because they don't get help with their hype from the administration.

[Karmadillo]

4. Sorry. I didn't get the "no story here" notice.

nt

[RC]

8. We may have changed administrations, but we still have the sale people behind the scenes

pulling the strings. The story fits.

[napi21]

3. A caller on talk radio this AM who was an employeeof TSA

explained why there's a problem with him and others not being on the NFL etc. All the Privacy & personal liberties groups are fighting access between lists. A State Dept List may have a person listed, but when someone applies for a visa, that Dept. isn't permitted to check the State Dept list. Likewise, that same person is not on a NFL because of most people not wanting a large database of info on Americans because it scares them.

I think people need to make a final decision hee. What do you really want? Do you want people who are on terrorist lists, State Dept. list, and several others to be also on the NFL? If you do, you need to give up the privacy thing and let the multi databases interchange info. If you can't go with that, then you need to quit bitcing aoubt theSttus Quo!

[Karmadillo]

6. Newsweek story fails to blame privacy & personal liberties groups

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2009/12/26/why-bombing-suspect-may-have-been-absent-from-u-s-no-fly-list.aspx

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One senior U.S. official gave NEWSWEEK the following account of Abdulmutallab's visa history: U.S. government records show that in June 2008, Abdulmutallab applied for, and was granted a tourist visa, valid for two years, to enter the U.S. At the time he was a student in London, and U.S. government databases showed no traces of "derogatory" information about him, such as any information whatsoever connecting him to terrorism or Islamic extremism.


The official said that some time later, perhaps around six months ago (as reported in this news account from the Nigerian media), Abdulmutallab's father, a prominent Nigerian banker named Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, reported concerns to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, that his son had become involved with religious extremists. As a result of this report, the State Department, which has responsibility for granting U.S. entry visas, notified the U.S. intelligence community, allegedly including the Terrorist Screening Center, which then allegedly opened some kind of file on Abdulmutallab, according to the senior official.

As of this week, however, no additional information apparently was received by either the State Department or any U.S. agency which would have raised the level of concerns about Abdulmutallab, according to the senior official. As a consequence, the senior official said, not only was Abdulmutallab's name not entered on the official U.S. "no fly list" but the State Department made no move to revoke his U.S. visa, which was still valid at the time he boarded Flight 253. However, the official said that a notification was added to visa records indicating that if Abdulmutallab applied for a new visa after his current one expired, some concerted effort should be made, based on the negative information which had been received, to re-evaluate whether or not a new U.S. visa should be granted.

[clear eye]

11. He got on board w/o a passport after going into an airline

manager's office. Odds are that the manager called his superiors in the U.S. before making such a major exception. Sounds like LIH to me.

[Karmadillo]

12. Link to account. How did he get onboard without a passport?

http://www.detnews.com/article/20091228/METRO/912280382/1409/Passenger-says-accused-terrorist-got-help-boarding

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The man they later learned was Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, wore older, scraggly clothing, but the man who was assisting him, who appeared to be of Indian descent, was dressed in what looked like an expensive suit and shoes, she said.

The well-dressed man told the ticket agent: "We need to get this man on the plane," Haskell recounted. "He doesn't have a passport."

The ticket agent told the man nobody was allowed to board without a passport, to which the well-dressed man replied: "We do this all the time; he's from Sudan," Haskell said, adding she and her husband believe the man was trying to pass Abdulmutallab off as a Sudanese refugee.

The two were then directed down a corridor to talk to a manager, she said.

"We never saw him again until he tried to blow up our plane," Haskell said of Abdulmutallab.

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[Karmadillo]

13. And who is the second person arrested?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roey-rosenblith/over-detroit-skies_b_404255.html

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We stayed in the baggage claim area for 3 hours without any word of what happened next. We were only allowed into the bathroom one person at a time by an officer who guarded the door. Behind the line of our immediate security detail there were hundreds of other police officers moving around back and forth, as if they were on they were on the night watch guarding a military base from a potential threat. What they were doing was unclear. The only thing that I recall happening is seeing an Indian guy off to the side, an older gentleman wearing a gray suit leaning against the wall. Suddenly there was a police officer next to him pulling his arms back and pulling handcuffs on him. The man didn't struggle, the bags which seemed to be his were left there, and he and the police officer disappeared around the corner.

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[pscot]

5. To summarize: The Fourth Internatonal

thinks the U.S government colludes in the murder of U.S. citizens to further its Corporatist war aims against the middle estern oil states. Ummm. OK...

[Karmadillo]

9. How many US citizens have died in the Bush Admin's War on Iraq?

nt

[ljm2002]

7. Okay, I know lots of people hate wsws.org as a source...

...and I know the "explanation" of why this guy was allowed on the plane sounds plausible, sort of.

However. Here, IMO, is the key passage in the OP:

"Since 9/11, there have been innumerable reports of people being barred from flying by government security officials for no apparent reason. One of these was the late Senator Edward Kennedy, who in 2004 was placed on the Homeland Security Department’s “no-fly” list and prevented from boarding a shuttle from Washington DC to Boston."

So I think it's worth asking: why was a sitting US Senator barred from a flight, due to being on the No Fly list; while a suspicious character, known to be a religious extremist, to the point where his own father turned him in, and who was indeed flagged in some databases -- why was this guy allowed on a plane in light of the above?

I do not say this as an attack on the Obama administration. Rather, I would suspect that the same right wing forces are at work in both cases; in the case of Edward Kennedy, just for yuks; and in the case of this guy, just to help discredit President Obama's anti-terror efforts.

Well it's not like we'll ever know. The truth has been buried and re-buried so many times, if it ever sees the light of day it will look like a zombie and people will unite to kill it anyway.

[pscot]

10. Those are good questions

The administration should answer them. The administration won't answer them. That sucks. We are left in the dark, and conspiracy theories thrive on darkness.