Chicago's Gun-Gang Crisis On The Rise In 2010

Six Wounded In Shootings On South, West Sides


At least six men were shot -- four on the West Side -- Friday night and early Saturday.

At 8:24 p.m. Saturday, a 23-year-old man standing in the 4800 block of West Jackson Boulevard was shot in the upper arm and taken in good condition to Loretto Hospital, police said.

At 9:54 p.m. Saturday, a man was shot in the leg during a robbery in the 4000 block of West Lexington Street, police said.

On the South Side, two gunmen exited a dark colored van and shot a 25-year-old man standing in the street in the 8300 block of South Justine Street about 10:15 p.m., police said. He was taken in stable condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

At 11:08 p.m., a man was shot in the 11100 block of South Racine Avenue, police said. He was taken in good condition to Christ Medical Center.

The shooting continued on the West Side early Saturday. At 2:21 a.m., a man in his 30s was shot multiple times in the 4800 block of West Gladys Avenue and was taken in serious condition to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, police said.

Ten minutes later, a 25-year-old man was shot in the 2200 block of West Race Avenue and was taken in an unidentified condition to Stroger Hospital with a gunshot wound to the abdomen area, police said.

Nobody is in custody for any of the shootings.






One dead, Two Wounded In West Side Shootings


One man was killed and two other people critically wounded in shootings on the West Side on Wednesday morning.

At 8:22 a.m. Fire Department personnel took two people to hospitals in serious to critical condition from a shooting at Polk and Pulaski, according to Fire Media Affairs spokesman Richard Rosado. One was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County and the other to Mount Sinai Hospital.

At 8:30 a.m. paramedics took one person, also listed in serious to critical condition, to Mount Sinai from a shooting on the 4000 block of West Lexington, Rosado said.

Police News Affairs Officer Michael Sullivan said three people were shot near Polk and Pulaski.

One of the victims taken to Mount Sinai, a 50-year-old man, died at the hospital at 8:44 a.m., according to a spokesman for the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.

The two shooting scenes are less than a block apart, the first about a half-block from Daniel Webster Elementary School at 4055 W. Arthington.

Harrison Area detectives are investigating.


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Sources: Chicago Sun Times, Youtube, Google Maps

Osama Bin Laden & Al-Zawahiri Hiding In Pakistan: NATO

Osama Bin Laden & Al-Zawahiri: Analysis: NATO Points Finger At Pakistan

Why is NATO doing this now?

A lot of what has been said is common sense and common knowledge among officials working in the Afghan theater. What is different is it's a growing pressure on Pakistan and its role.

We had the information before about Osama bin Laden being close to Ayman al-Zawahiri, and it's been clear for a while he has not been living in a cave. It is not clear yet why a NATO official is saying this now.

The sense, behind the scenes, is Pakistan is believed to be coming towards the negotiating table and behind the Taliban as it begins to talk to the Afghan government.

Pakistan has its own set of desires for the outcome in Afghanistan -- and they are trying to achieve these demands behinds the scenes, we are led to believe, in association with the U.S. and Afghanistan.

It seems hardly surprising that there would be more pressure on Pakistan to provide what the U.S. and NATO wants, which is Osama bin Laden to be handed over.

Has the West or NATO done anything like this before?

This is the first time in many, many years that the finger has been pointed so blatantly at Pakistan. If you look at Bob Woodward's book "Obama's War," one of the things Barack Obama has wanted to do is point the finger at Pakistan and say "the problem is there" whether it is terror training camps or home to bin Laden.

It seems to be part of an effort to put the focus on Pakistan.

Why is it now thought bin Laden is in a town?

Both the Taliban and al Qaeda, in conversations that have been intercepted, are saying that the drone strikes on isolated houses are proving quite effective.

It is clear that this is a worry for the grassroot jihadists and more so for the leadership who are less expendable.

It is safer to be living in a more urban environment because the risk of collateral damage -- innocent lives -- is higher.

We have seen the Taliban moving to Karachi, and Pakistan media has reported members of al Qaeda living there also.

Given the rate of drone attacks it is no surprise they would feel safer among people.

Why would bin Laden get protection?

Nobody wants to turn in what many people see as a hero of Islam. These people would also not be swayed by reward money.

There would also be reams of security around bin Laden so few people would actually know where he is living.

Some in the Pakistan intelligence services are believed by some other intelligence services as having a very radical Islamist view sympathetic to bin Laden.

What does Pakistan want?

The Taliban leaders are bargaining chips for Pakistan's goal which is regional security. That includes India having less influence in Afghanistan.

A more influential India would leave Pakistan feeling surrounded by Indian interests.

Pakistan ultimately wants a stronger, traditional Pashtun government for Afghanistan so that India cannot get a stronger foothold there.


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Sources: CNN, NATO, Google Maps

Which Obama Appointee Will Go Next? Blair Or Napolitano?

Mitchell Predicts: Head To Roll



Not a surprise, but still noteworthy: a heavy MSM hitter is now strongly suggesting that, post-NWA 253, a senior Obama admin official will be walking the plank.

Say what we will of her, but Andrea Mitchell has her sources. So when the NBC correspondent declared on Morning Joe today that she suspects "somebody is either going to be resigning or forced to resign," we can pretty much take it to the [Federal Reserve?] bank.

ANDREA MITCHELL: The president was surprisingly tough about the systemic failure. That tells me, it certainly tells people who cover the White House [Chuck Todd in Hawaii with PBO, perhaps?] that something is going to happen. You talked about it just a bit ago, and it seems to me that somebody--Dan Senor mentioned this--somebody is going to have to pay the price for this.

Whether it's Dennis Blair [Director of National Intelligence] or someone else in the system, it's very clear that the president wants accountability and he said that there's going to be accountability. And somebody I would suspect is going to either be resigning or forced to resign.

I'm sure Blair isn't thrilled to be the only person whose name Mitchell mentioned. But whatever his fate, is it conceivable, given her "system worked" fiasco, that Janet Napolitano is long for the Department of Homeland Security?




Burton Calls For Napolitano's Scalp


Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) — the guy who blew away a pumpkin to replicate Vince Foster's "murder" and called President Clinton a "scumbag" — is the first Republican out of the box to call for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's resignation.

Never mind that half of Burton's press release implicates the FBI, DOJ, State Department and foreign governments just as much as DHS. ...

He concludes that, like a January Santa hat, Napolitano's just got to go!


“The details surrounding Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to kill hundreds of Americans on Northwest Flight 253 amount to what is a phenomenal breach of security. This Al Qaeda operative offered no shortage of red flags, but none caught the eye of intelligence and security officials. Reports indicated that the laundry list of warning signs includes Mr. Abdulmutallab, who was on the terrorist watch list, buying a one-way ticket with cash, not checking any luggage, and boarding the flight without a passport. Most shocking, his father told the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, weeks ago, that his son had been radicalized and is dangerous".

"The fact that this security breach occurred in such a brazen way means that there was a level of significant incompetence involved, and I believe that rests solely on the shoulders of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. After serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee for the last 25 years, I can say with certainty that Secretary Napolitano does not have the background or experience necessary to execute her responsibilities. Her bizarre remarks on Sunday were the final straw in a series of embarrassing and incompetent comments this year. By saying ‘the system worked,’ Secretary Napolitano has undermined the confidence of Americans".



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Sources: Newsbusters, MSNBC, Politico, Google Maps

Somalian Man Arrested In Nov. For Same Al-Qaida Activity

Somali Arrested In November At Airport With Chemicals, Syringe



A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chillingly similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The Somali man — whose name has not yet been released — was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off. It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. A Somali police spokesman, Abdulahi Hassan Barise, said the suspect is in Somali custody.

"We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaida or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," said Barise.

A Nairobi-based diplomat said the incident in Somalia is similar to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in that the Somali man had a syringe, a bag of powdered chemicals and liquid — tools similar to those used in the Detroit attack. The diplomat spoke on condition he not be identified because he isn't authorized to release the information.

Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the African Union military force in Mogadishu, said the chemicals from the Somali suspect could have caused an explosion that would have caused air decompression inside the plane. However, Bahoku said he doesn't believe an explosion would have brought the plane down.

A second international official familiar with the incident, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to discuss the case, confirmed that the substances carried by the Somali passenger could have been used as an explosive device.

In the Detroit case, alleged attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid explosive PETN in a condom or condom-like bag just below his torso when he traveled from Amsterdam to Detroit. Like the captured Somali, Abdulmutallab also had a syringe filled with liquid. The substances seized from the Somali passenger are being tested.

The November incident garnered little attention before the Dec. 25 attack aboard a flight on final approach to Detroit. U.S. officials have now learned of the Somali case and are hastening to investigate any possible links between it and the Detroit attack, though no officials would speak on the record about the probe.

U.S. investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen — which lies across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Similarly, large swaths of Somalia are controlled by an insurgent group, al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaida.

Western officials say many of the hundreds of foreign jihadi fighters in Somalia come in small boats across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen. The officials also say that examination of equipment used in some Somali suicide attacks leads them to believe it was originally assembled in Yemen.

Law enforcement officials believe the suspect in the Detroit incident tried to ignite a two-part concoction of the high explosive PETN and possibly a glycol-based liquid explosive, setting off popping, smoke and some fire but no deadly detonation. Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, is charged with trying to destroy an aircraft.

A Somali security official involved in the capture of the suspect in Mogadishu said he had a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) package of chemical powder and a container of liquid chemicals. The security official said the suspect was the last passenger to try to board.

Once security officials detected the powder chemicals and syringe, the suspect tried to bribe the security team that detained him, the Somali security official said. The security official said the suspect had a white shampoo bottle with a black acid-like substance in it. He also had a clear plastic bag with a light green chalky substance and a syringe containing a green liquid. The security official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

The powdered material had the strong scent of ammonia, Bahoku said, and samples have been sent to London for testing.

The Somali security officials said the Daallo Airlines flight was scheduled to go from Mogadishu to Hargeisa, to Djibouti and then to Dubai.

A spokeswoman for Daallo Airlines said that company officials weren't aware of the incident and would have to seek more information before commenting. Daallo Airlines is based in Dubai and has offices in Djibouti and France.



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Sources: AP, Air America.com, ABC News, Google Maps

Wake Up America! Al-Qaida Is Back! First Hasan, Now Umar!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Letting Down Our Guard


The former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says America has gotten complacent and too worried about image, privacy, and the state of the airline industry. Christmas was a wakeup call.

In the days to come, government, congressional, media, and academic observers will study and reach conclusions about the lessons to be learned from the failed bombing effort by Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab aboard a Northwest flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. But the general lessons are likely to be familiar, as they reflect truths that have been taught by other terrorist efforts over the past decade.

First, the most sophisticated—and therefore the most dangerous—radical Islamist plots are global in nature, and usually involve training and advanced radicalization in a safe haven. Currently, the most dangerous safe haven is the frontier area of Pakistan, but Somalia, and now parts of Yemen, have become areas of ungoverned space where deadly plots and devices can be hatched.

It remains true that our first line of defense is to take the battle to the enemy where he lives, plans, and trains recruits. That means that we will not only have to continue our use of force in South Asia, but the Horn of Africa as well.

Second, the idea that we can readily identify and profile international terrorists is dangerously misleading. Abdulmuttalab, a Nigerian, does not fit the image of a Pakistani or Arab extremist. Neither did Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, or some of the seemingly well-adjusted British plotters who intended to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006.

In fact, al Qaeda has deliberately sought to recruit Westerners as operatives to take advantage of any stereotype we have about what a typical terrorist looks like. The fact that a U.S. Army major carried out a successful terrorist attack at Fort Hood ought to confound our expectations about the kind of people who become violent extremists.

Third, complacency remains an insidious flaw in our natural defenses. For eight years we frustrated plots because we spared no effort to examine and address any lead about a potential threat. But as time passed, more people began to suffer from battle fatigue or to fall prey to historical revisionism. Critics expressed concern that American security was showing an unfriendly face to the world, discouraging travel and tourism.

The airline industry balked at any measure that might cost time, money, or effort in the air travel process. Civil libertarians and others stridently campaigned against stricter identification-document requirements, more accurate scanning equipment, and intelligence-driven behavioral-pattern analysis. Spending money on shoring up failing industries crowded out the necessary sustained investment in deploying technology, hiring more air marshals, and building secure infrastructure.

Christmas 2009 was an abrupt—though fortunately not tragic—reminder of what our priorities need to be:

Continue to take forceful military action against terrorist havens throughout the world. Assure that we do not cede Afghanistan to the enemy and worsen the problem. A recent high-level extremist turncoat confirmed that a tough, lethal response to terrorist acts shakes the enemy’s self-confidence and depresses their recruiting.

Connect the dots of our intelligence and be prepared to take action based on that intelligence. Squeamishness about any slight to privacy or worries about whether the evidence meets judicial standards induces the kind of bureaucratic paralysis that allows a terrorist to slip through our existing defenses. And the men and women of our intelligence community need to know that our leaders will back them up.

Reap the benefits of our technological advantage. Scanning and screening hardware and software continue to improve. But we benefit from those improvements only if we deploy them. As Christmas Day reminded us once again, to save innocent lives our security must be right 100 percent of the time; a suicide bomber only needs to be successful once.

Let’s give our screeners and inspectors the tools they need so they can be as close as possible to that 100 percent.



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Sources: AP, The Daily Beast, MSNBC, Google Maps

Obama Admits "Systemic Failure" Contributed To Terror Attack

President Obama: "Systemic Failure" Has Occurred


In a marked change of tone from his remarks Monday, President Barack Obama said today that a “systemic failure” led to the failed terrorist attack aboard a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day.

“When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted on as it should have been,” Obama said, “a Systemic Failure has occurred, and I consider that unacceptable.”

The President also announced that Tuesday morning he issued formal guidelines for the reviews he ordered over the weekend of the government’s terrorist watch-list system and airline screening procedures and directed that the reviews’ preliminary findings be provided to the White House on Thursday.

“It’s essential that we diagnose the problems quickly and deal with them immediately,” Obama said in remarks at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii.



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Sources: Politico, Google Maps

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's Explosive Underwear Photos

Photos Of The Northwest Airlines Flight 253 Bomb



A singed pair of underwear with a packet of powder sewn into the crotch, seen in government photos obtained exclusively by ABC News, is all that remains of al Qaeda's attempt to down an American passenger plane over Detroit.

As seen in these photos, the alleged bomb consisted of a packet of powder sewn into the briefs of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian. Al Qaeda took credit Monday for the attempted bombing, boasted of its ability to overcome U.S. intelligence and airport security, and promised new attacks.

The first photo, to the left, shows the slightly charred underpants with the bomb packet still in place. All photos include a ruler to provide scale.

The bomb packet is a six-inch long container of the high-explosive chemical PETN, less than a half cup in volume, weighing about 80 grams.


UNDERWEAR AND EXPLOSIVE PACKET

In the second photo (right), the packet of explosive powder has been removed from the underpants and displayed separately.

A government test with 50 grams of PETN blew a hole in the side of an airliner. That

was the amount in the bomb carried by the so-called shoe bomber Richard Reid over Christmas 2001.

The underpants bomb would have been one and a half times as powerful.

Acid in Syringe Was Detonator

PETN PACKAGE

Tragedy was averted only because the detonator, acid in a syringe, did not work.

"It's very clear it came very, very close," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R.-Mich., ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee. "The explosive device went off, but it became an incendiary device instead of an explosive device, which is probably what saved that airplane."

The acid in the melted plastic syringe, pictured below, caused a fire but did not make proper contact with the PETN.

Abdulmutallab told FBI agents he received the bomb from and was trained by al Qaeda in Yemen over the last few months. In a web posting today, the al Qaeda group displayed a picture of Abdulmutallab, calling him a hero who "overcame legendary American intelligence which showed its fragility, putting its nose in the ground, using all of what they spent in new security techniques against them."

The al Qaeda group in Yemen has been calling for attacks against the U.S. for months.

Two of its four top leaders were U.S. prisoners at Guantanamo until November, 2007 when they were turned over to Saudi Arabia and then set free after supposedly being rehabilitated.

Now U.S. officials say these men have shown they pose a much greater operational threat than al Qaeda in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Richard Clarke: Yemen is the new Afghanistan. It is the new sanctuary, the new al Qaeda base where people from around the world, who want to be trained are sent. No longer to Afghanistan, but to Yemen.a

In its statement today, the al Qaeda group said the attempt to bring down the jet was retaliation for U.S. air strikes in Yemen.

But those air strikes took place on December 17, and Abdulmutallab's mission was already underway then as he bought his ticket to Detroit on Dec. 16.


Sources: AP, ABC News, Youtube

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's Lonely Life Style

In Online Posts Apparently By Detroit Suspect, Religious Ideals Collide


The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner apparently turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship, writing in an online forum that he was "lonely" and had "never found a true Muslim friend."

"I have no one to speak too [sic]," read a posting from January 2005, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was attending boarding school. "No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems."

The Washington Post reviewed 300 online postings under the name "farouk1986" (a combination of Abdulmutallab's middle name and birth year). The postings mused openly about love and marriage, his college ambitions and angst over standardized testing, as well as his inner struggle as a devout Muslim between liberalism and extremism. In often-intimate writings, posted between 2005 and 2007, he sought friends online, through Facebook and in Islamic chat rooms: "My name is Umar but you can call me Farouk." He often invited readers to "have your say" and once wrote, "May Allah reward you for reading and reward you more for helping."

A U.S. government official said late Monday that federal intelligence officials were reviewing the online postings but had not independently confirmed their authenticity.

Many of the biographical details in the writings, however, match up with facts already known about Abdulmutallab.

Farouk1986 wrote of being born in 1986 and having attended an elite British boarding school in Togo, where many of his classmates were British expatriates and students from around West Africa.

The postings also reference visits to London, the United States and other countries, including Egypt and Yemen. Department of Homeland Security officials said Monday that Abdulmutallab traveled to the United States in July 2004 to Washington and in August 2008 to Houston.

Farouk1986 wrote about considering applications to U.S. and British universities, including University College London, where officials said Abdulmutallab enrolled in a mechanical engineering course from September 2005 to June 2008. He also wrote about his family's wealth; Abdulmutallab's father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a frequent visitor to the United States, retired this year as chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and still sits on the boards of several prominent Nigerian firms.

All of the postings are on the Islamic Forum Web site (http://www.gawaher.com), which uses a commercially available chat-forum software called IP.Board that automatically assigns dates to users' posts as they are created. Many of Farouk1986's postings drew comments from other forum members on the day they were written

Taken together, the writings demonstrate an acute awareness of Western customs and a worldliness befitting Abdulmutallab's privileged upbringing as a wealthy Nigerian banker's son.

Embracing Privilege

In a June 2005 posting, Farouk1986 wrote that he was in Yemen for a three-month Arabic course, saying that "it is just great." He described how many British people and Americans were in Sanaa, gushing about the capital's shopping and global cuisine (including, he noted, Pizza Hut and KFC).

The Yemeni Embassy said Monday that Abdulmutallab was in Yemen between August and December of this year to study Arabic at a language institute. He earlier spent time at the same institute, the embassy said.

Farouk1986 wrote often of the college admissions process, once describing his plans to study engineering at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley or the California Institute of Technology. But he also wrote of his disappointment in scoring a 1200 on the SAT. "I tried the SAT," he wrote in March 2005. "It was a disaster!!!"

On Facebook, Abdulmutallab's profile features a photo of him smiling, standing alongside two friends and wearing a sharp-looking pink polo shirt and sunglasses. He has 287 friends.

Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, 22, who studied with Abdulmutallab at University College London, said Abdulmutallab graduated in May 2008 and showed no signs of radicalization or of links to al-Qaeda. "He always did the bare minimum of work," Marincola said of his classmate, who he said was nicknamed "Biggie."

"When we were studying, he always would go off to pray," Marincola continued. "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of."

As a student at the British boarding school in Togo, Farouk1986 wrote that he was lonely because there were few other Muslims. "I'm active, I socialise with everybody around me, no conflicts, I laugh and joke but not excessively," he wrote in one posting seeking counseling from online peers. "I will describe myself as very ambitious and determined, especially in the deen. I strive to live my daily live [sic] according to the quran and sunnah to the best of my ability. I do almost everything, sports, TV, books . . . (of course trying not to cross the limits in the deen)." The deen is a religious way of life.

Ideals colliding

In his January 2005 posting about his loneliness, Farouk1986 wrote about the tension between his desires and his religious duty of "lowering the gaze" in the presence of women. "The Prophet (S) advised young men to fast if they can't get married but it has not been helping me much and I seriously don't want to wait for years before I get married," he wrote.

At 18, he added, he had not started searching for prospective partners because of social norms such as having "a degree, a job, a house, etc. before getting married." But, he said, "my parents I know could help me financially should I get married, even though I think they are also not going to be in favour of early marriage."

He also wrote of his "dilemma between liberalism and extremism" as a Muslim. "The Prophet (S) said religion is easy and anyone who tries to overburden themselves will find it hard and will not be able to continue," he wrote in 2005. "So anytime I relax, I deviate sometimes and then when I strive hard, I get tired of what I am doing i.e. memorising the quran, etc. How should one put the balance right?"

In December 2005, Farouk1986 wrote that his parents were visiting him in London and that he was torn about whether he could eat meat with them. "I am of the view meat not slaughtered by Muslims . . . is haram [forbidden] for consumption unless necessary," he wrote. "My parents are of the view as foreigners, we are allowed to . . . eat any meat. It occured [sic] to me I should not be eating with my parents as they use meat I consider haram. But I fear this might cause division and other complicated family problems."

He pleaded: "Please respond as quickly as possible as my tactic has been to eat outside and not at home till I get an answer."

Abdulmutallab, the youngest of 16 children and the son of the second of his father's two wives, was raised at the family home in Kaduna, a city in Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north. At boarding school, Farouk was easygoing and studious, earning the sobriquet "Alfa," a local term for Muslim clerics, because of his penchant for preaching Islam to colleagues, according to family members.

"Farouk was a devoted Muslim who took his religion seriously and was committed to his studies," said an uncle. "He was such a brilliant boy and nobody in the family had the slightest thought he could do something as insane as this."

Although Farouk hardly ever stayed in Nigeria and would visit only for holidays, family members and neighbors on Ahman Pategi Street in the rich Unguwar Sarki neighborhood in Kaduna also said he was easygoing and passionate about Islam. "He was of course a very religious, polite and studious fellow," said a cousin, "but it was unthinkable that he would do anything close to attempting to bomb a plane."


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Sources: AP, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, NY Daily News, Youtube, Google Maps

Al-Qaida Warns U.S. More Yemen Trained Bombers On The Way

Al-Qaida Group Says It Was Behind Detroit Bound Jetliner Attack


Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula on Monday claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day, saying it was retaliation for a U.S. operation against the group in Yemen.

Federal authorities met Monday to reassess the U.S. system of terror watchlists to determine how to avoid the type of lapse that allowed a man with explosives to board the flight in Amsterdam even though he was flagged as a possible terrorist.

In a statement posted on the Internet, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab coordinated with members of the group, an alliance of militants based in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Yemeni forces, helped by U.S. intelligence, carried out two airstrikes against al-Qaida operatives in the country this month. The second one was a day before Abdulmutallab attempted to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight as it prepared to land in Detroit.

The group said Abdulmutallab used explosives manufactured by al-Qaida members. "He managed to penetrate all devices and modern advanced technology and security checkpoints in international airports bravely without fear of death," the group said in the statement, "relying on God and defying the large myth of American and international intelligence, and exposing how fragile they are, bringing their nose to the ground, and making them regret all what they spent on security technology."

The Obama administration has ordered investigations into how travelers are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened, as critics and administration officials questioned how Abdulmutallab was allowed to board the flight. A senior U.S. intelligence official said authorities were reviewing the procedures that govern the lists, which could include how someone is placed on or moved between the various databases.

"Why wasn't he flagged at a higher screening level?" Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "How did he get an explosive substance on to the plane? All of those are serious questions that we are now looking at."

Passengers have faced stiffer boarding measures since Friday. Authorities warned travelers to expect extra delays returning home from holidays.

The intelligence official said the review will look at what adjustments could be made to avoid the type of gap that allowed Abdulmutallab to fly into Detroit even though Britain had refused to grant him a student visa in May. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal review.

Congress is already starting to weigh in. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said Monday that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee would hold hearings on the incident in January. Lieberman is chairman of the committee.

The White House press office, traveling with President Barack Obama in Hawaii, said Monday that the president would make a statement from the Kaneoho Marine Base in the midafternoon.

Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to detonate an explosive device hidden on his body as the plane approached Detroit on a flight from Amsterdam last Friday. Law enforcement officials say he tucked below his waist a small bag holding a potentially deadly concoction of liquid and powder explosive materials. The device burst into flames without exploding, according to authorities, and Abdulmutallab was subdued by passengers. The plane landed safely.

His name was one of about 550,000 in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, known as TIDE, which is maintained by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. Inclusion in that database does not trigger mandatory additional airport screening.

Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed, backtracking from a statement Sunday in which she said the airline security system worked. She said her words had been taken out of context.

"Our system did not work in this instance," she said Monday on NBC's "Today" show. "No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."

Harold Demuren, the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, said Abdulmutallab paid cash on Dec. 16 for the $2,831 round-trip ticket from Lagos, Nigeria, to Detroit via Amsterdam. He said Abdulmutallab's ticket came from a KLM office in Accra, Ghana.

Demuren said Abdulmutallab checked into his flight with only a small carryon bag.

Officials said he came to the attention of U.S. intelligence last month when his father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, a prominent Nigerian banker, reported to the American Embassy in Nigeria about his son's increasingly extremist religious views.

In a statement released Monday, Abdulmutallab's family in Nigeria said that his father reached out to Nigerian security agencies two months ago. The statement says the father then approached foreign security agencies for "their assistance to find and return him home."

Abdulmutallab had been placed in a U.S. database of people suspected of terrorist ties in November, but officials say there was not enough information about his activities to place him on a watch list that could have kept him from flying.

In Britain, Abdulmutallab was placed on a standard watch list of people whose visa applications were rejected, but he was not flagged as a potential terror suspect, British officials said Monday.

Abdulmutallab, who graduated from a London university last year, had his subsequent visa application denied in May 2009. British officials said the school on his application form was not a government-approved institution.







Abdulmutallab: More Like Me In Yemen


American officials have cause to worry there may be more al Qaeda-trained young men in Yemen planning to bring down American jets.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged with the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253, told FBI agents there were more just like him in Yemen who would strike soon.

And in a tape released four days before the attempted destruction of the Detroit-bound Northwest plane, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen boasted of what was planned for Americans, saying, "We are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of God."

Yemen has become a principal al Qaeda training ground and the accused suicide bomber told the FBI he was trained for more than a month in Yemen, given 80 grams of a high explosive cleverly sewn into his underpants, undetected by standard security screening.

"They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles' heel in our airport security system," said ABC News consultant and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.

Law enforcement authorities say tragedy was averted only because the bomb's detonator did not work.

"I think it's very clear it came very, very close," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee. "The explosive device went off, it became an incendiary device instead of an explosive device, which is probably what saved that airplane."

On Sunday, in its first communication since the failed Northwest Airline bombing, Al Qaeda in Yemen released a written statement about the December 17 air strike in Yemen. The statement called on "the people of the Arabian peninsula" to attack American military installations, ships and "spying embassies." The U.S. Embassy in Yemen was attacked by Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in September 2008, and the U.S.S. Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer, was hit by Al Qaeda in 2000.

Abdulmutallab's Life of Privilege

Abdulmutallab led a life of privilege as the son of a prominent Nigerian banker.

He lived in an upscale neighborhood in London, attended top boarding schools and a London college.

Michael Rimmer, one of his former high school teachers, called him "a model student, very keen, very enthusiastic."

"He was a very nice, friendly person," said Efemena Mokedi, a former classmate. "He was a person who did a lot of good things."

In e-mails sent over the last six years, and obtained by ABC News, Abdulmutallab worried whether his religion would allow him to attend a high school prom, worried about low college SAT test scores, expressed opposition to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then prior to breaking with his parents, questioned whether it was okay to lie to deceive the enemy.

Explained Clarke, "The kind of person, who's being radicalized increasingly in the U.S. and in Europe, are people who are sons of the middle class, the upper middle class, sons of well educated families, people who have radicalized at long distance over the Internet."

The suspect's father was so concerned about his son's radicalization he actually alerted the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that his son could be a threat to America.

Abdulmutallab was put on a terror watch list, along with 550,000 others, but he was not put on the no-fly list and his U.S. visa, which he obtained a year and a half ago, was not revoked. He used the visa to board the flight to Detroit Christmas morning.



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TSA Security System Miserable Failure, Homeland Security Ignored Agency Mishaps

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TSA Continues Rudderless And Leader-less



The last thing air travelers need during the bustling, holiday season, is compromised security on their journeys. Unfortunately, there’s a slight problem — TSA.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), guardian of air travel safety, has breached its own security and is riddled with problems. Just last week, for example, news agencies discovered that TSA agents had effectively and publicly posted their agency’s classified blue-prints to airport security screenings, because they didn’t know how PDF documents work.

No joke!

Due to their ignorance, things such as a VIP list of flyers who would not be screened, items that would make their way through the airport unexamined, details indicating what size electrical wire can go undetected by airport screening machines (and more) — all high-value information for potential terrorists and bomb makers – is now public knowledge.

Another reason for the problems plaguing TSA may be the fact that, nearly a full year into the presidency of Barack Obama, there still is no permanent director at the helm of this key security agency.

Political squabbling over Obama’s pick for the top TSA post — Erroll Southers, currently assistant chief for homeland security at Los Angeles International Airport – has kept the post vacant.

South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint has placed a hold on Souther’s confirmation — not, apparently because of concerns with the Californian’s security credentials, but because DeMint worries he might move to unionize TSA’s thousands of workers (a move the Senate would have to approve at any rate).

TSA suffered yet another embarassing media moment earlier this year, when it stepped far outside its scope of authority — guarding against weapons or explosives making their way on board commercial aircraft – and detained a member of Rep. Ron Paul’s congressional staff because he was carrying a metal box full of cash — not C-4 explosive — in his carry-on luggage.

Unbeknownst to his TSA detainers, the staffer recorded the incident on his i-Phone. The resulting publicity focused national attention on what exactly TSA’s duties are.

The silver lining in this TSA cloud was a clarification of the agency’s jurisdiction — which now very explicitly does not extend to the carrying of US greenbacks on board an aircraft.

Even former TSA inspector general Clark Kent Ervin as admitted that, “there has been a pattern of incompetence and ineptitude on the part of the TSA over the years.”

Lack of Leadership, mission creep, and hiring missteps have led to legitimate questions being raised about whether a single, massive federal agency can maintain the discipline, focus and professionalism needed to carry out the vital task of ensuring that weapons or explosives remain on the ground and not in the air.

This holiday season, as many millions of American citizens and foreign visitors traverse our country’s many airports, Congress should make it top priority to buckle down, address the problems that have plagued TSA, and at least install a permanent director.

Such a move would pay dividends far greater than the continued focus of the Congress in dismantling America’s health care system; and it would be infintely less expensive.

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Uninvestigated Terrorism Warning About Detroit Suspect Called Not Unusual


When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father in Nigeria reported concern over his son's "radicalization" to the U.S. Embassy there last month, intelligence officials in the United States deemed the information insufficient to pursue. The young man's name was added to the half-million entries in a computer database in McLean and largely forgotten.

The lack of attention was not unusual, according to U.S. intelligence officials, who said that thousands of similar bits of information flow into the National Counter Terrorism Center each week from around the world. Only those that indicate a specific threat, or add to an existing body of knowledge about an individual, are passed along for further investigation and possible posting on airline and border watch lists.

"It's got to be something that causes the information to sort of rise out of the noise level, because there is just so much out there," one intelligence official said.

The report entered on Abdulmutallab, 23, after his father's Nov. 19 visit to the embassy was "very, very thin, with minimal information," said a second U.S. official familiar with its contents.

Abdulmutallab's alleged attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound commercial airliner on Christmas Day has put the information in a new light, however. It has unleashed sharp criticism of the watch-list procedures and the explosive-detection systems that apparently allowed him to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with materials for a bomb.

On Sunday, the air travel system responded to another alert when a second Nigerian man locked himself in the bathroom on the same Northwest Airlines flight into Detroit. Officials said he was belligerent but genuinely sick and not a threat, according to the Associated Press.

Republican leaders placed responsibility for what they called lapses in preparedness squarely on the Obama administration Sunday, and questioned whether the president appreciates terrorist threats. "I think there's much to investigate here," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on ABC's "This Week."

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) joined GOP critics in asking how the suspect was able to retain a U.S. visa -- issued by the U.S. Embassy in London in 2008 -- after his name appeared in the terrorist database.

"What happened after this man's father called our embassy in Nigeria?" Lieberman asked. "What happened to that information? Was there follow-up to try to determine where this suspect was?"

White House officials struggled to explain the complicated system of centralized terrorist data and watch lists, stressing that they were put in place years ago by the Bush administration. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama has ordered reviews of the watch-list system and the airport explosives screening.

"The president is very confident that this government is taking the steps that are necessary to take -- to take our fight to those that seek to do us harm," Gibbs said, emphasizing stepped-up military activity against al-Qaeda in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union" that Abdulmutallab's assertions of al-Qaeda contacts and training in Yemen were being investigated, but that "right now, we have no indication" his actions were "part of anything larger."

A Justice Department official said Abdulmutallab was released Sunday from a Michigan hospital where he was treated for burns suffered in the failed bombing. He was in a federal prison in Milan, Mich., according to the Associated Press. He is scheduled to appear in federal court in Michigan on Jan. 8.

The youngest of 16 children of a prominent Nigerian bank executive, and the son of the second of his father's two wives, Abdulmutallab was raised at the family home in Kaduna, a city

in Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north, relatives there said. He graduated with an engineering degree from City University in London. Later, his father sent him to Dubai to study for an advanced business degree.

In July, relatives said, his father agreed to his request to study Arabic in Yemen. The family became concerned in August when Abdulmutallab called to say he had dropped the course but would remain in Yemen for an undisclosed purpose. Several days later, they said, he sent a text message saying he was severing all ties with his family.

Relatives said that message provoked his father's visits to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and to the Nigerian intelligence service. U.S. intelligence officials insisted Sunday that the visit did not occur until mid-November.

Abdulmutallab's movements after that are unclear, although a Nigerian official said Sunday that he "sneaked" into the country on the 24th. He paid cash for a ticket on a Dec. 24 KLM flight from Lagos to Amsterdam, connecting to Northwest 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day.

"The e-ticket was purchased from KLM airport office in Accra [Ghana] on 16th December 2009," Harold Demuren, a Nigerian aviation official, told a news conference in Lagos. "His passport was scanned, his U.S. visa was scanned, and the APIS [Advanced Passenger Information System] returned with no objection."

Abdulmutallab's name would have bounced back if he appeared on the U.S. "no-fly" or "selectee" watch lists. Although the size of the government's overall terrorist database has expanded since such information began to be systematically collected in 2003, the number of people prohibited from boarding a domestic or U.S.-bound aircraft, or subject to special scrutiny and notification of U.S. law enforcement, has shrunk, from an estimated 30,000 in early 2007 to 18,000 today.

Widespread complaints in the past tended to focus on lists seen as too long, rather than too short. Many came from members of Congress who objected to constituents and spouses being delayed or prevented from boarding flights because information about them or someone with a similar name had been listed.

The White House review will examine protocols for watch-listing individuals, currently based on a "reasonable suspicion" standard, according to the intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"Do we as a country believe that the bar is too high in light of this one individual who didn't reach it? Do we want to lower the bar? If we do, what are the implications? We are going to have a lot more people on the list."

The existing system was established by the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. It was designed to close gaps in intelligence-sharing that allowed a number of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers to enter the United States, although the CIA had identified them overseas as terrorism suspects.

The reforms set up the National Counterterrorism Center, which administers a huge database of terrorism information called the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE.

Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field assessments, captured documents, news from foreign allies and the media, and reports from worried fathers -- pour into the NCTC computers in McLean. At 11 each night, selected information from TIDE is downloaded into the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, administered by the FBI. Overnight entries are examined each morning by an interagency team drawn from across the government.

Under FBI direction, individuals assessed as significant risks are then "nominated" to specific watch lists, each of which has different criteria. In addition to the "no-fly" and "selectee" lists, the State Department maintains a list of people who should not be granted visas; other lists single out people who cross land borders and domestic fugitives.

In Abdulmutallab's case, a single, non-specific entry in TIDE was not enough to send his information to the TSDB, so he was never considered for a watch list. Among the gaps in the system already being addressed by computer technicians, officials said, is the absence of an "automatic feedback loop" that would have let TIDE know that the random report from Nigeria referred to a man who already had a valid U.S. entry visa, issued more than a year before.



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Nigerian Terror Suspect's Family Shocked, Angry At His Radical Behavior

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Bomb Suspect’s Actions Were "Out Of Character"



The Nigerian man accused of trying to bring down a U.S.-bound airliner disappeared while studying abroad, his family said.

In a statement released early Monday, the family of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab said that after his "disappearance and stoppage of communications while schooling abroad," his father reached out to Nigerian security agencies two months ago.

The statement says the father then approached foreign security agencies for "their assistance to find and return him home."

The family says: "It was while we were waiting for the outcome of their investigation that we arose to the shocking news of that day."

The family described Abdulmutallab's disappearance as "completely out of character".

"From very early childhood, Farouk, to the best of parental monitoring, had never shown any attitude, conduct or association that would give concern," the statement said.

The statement did not offer any specifics on where Abdulmutallab, 23, had been.

As a member of a prominent and wealthy Nigerian family, Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.

But the education he wanted was apparently of a different sort. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he allegedly told U.S. officials that he had sought an extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

Privileged Life

A portrait emerged of a serious young man who led a privileged life as the son of a prominent banker, but became estranged from his family as an adult. Devoutly religious, he was nicknamed "The Pope" for his sainty aura and gave few clues in his youth that he would turn radical, friends and family said.

"In all the time I taught him we never had cross words," said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo. "Somewhere along the line he must have met some sort of fanatics, and they must have turned his mind."

Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Northwest flight on Christmas Day with 278 passengers on board. The detonator on his explosive apparently malfunctioned and he was subdued by other passengers.

His family home sits in the northern city of Funtua, in the heart of Nigeria's Islamic culture. Religion figured into the family's life: His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, who had a successful career in commercial banking, also joined the board of an Islamic bank — one that avoids the kind of interest payments banned by the Quran.

The large house, surrounded by a wall and a metal fence just off the main road running through the city, stood empty, a common occurrence for a jet-set family that sought an education abroad for Abdulmutallab.

Mutallab was assisting the FBI, Information Minister Dora Akunyili said.

"Very Obedient"

The elder Mutallab was "a responsible and respected Nigerian, with a true Nigerian spirit," she said. He had been estranged from his son for several months and alerted officials at the U.S. Embassy last month about the youth's growing hard-line Islamic religious beliefs.

A close neighbor told the AP he believed Abdulmutallab did not get his extremist ideas from his family or from within Nigeria.

Basiru Sani Hamza, 35, said Abdulmutallab was "very religious" and "very obedient" to his parents as a boy in the well-to-do banking family.

"I believe he must have been lured where he is schooling to carry out this attack," Hamza said. "Really, the boy has betrayed his father because he has been taking care of all their needs."

Rimmer, a teacher at his high school in West Africa, said Abdulmutallab had been well-respected.

"At one stage, his nickname was 'The Pope,'" Rimmer said from London in a telephone interview. "In one way it's totally unsuitable because he's Muslim, but he did have this saintly aura."

But Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, Rimmer said.

In a discussion in 2001, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Rimmer said. At the time, Rimmer thought the boy was just playing the devil's advocate.

He also noted that during a school trip to London, Abdulmutallab became upset when the teacher took students to a pub and said it wasn't right to be in a place where alcohol was served.

Rimmer also remembered the youngster choosing to give 50 pounds to an orphanage rather than spend it on souvenirs in London.

Rimmer described the institution — an elite college preparatory school, attended by children of diplomats and wealthy Africans — as a "lovely, lovely environment" where Christians often joined in Islamic feasts and where some of the best Christmas carolers were Muslims.

Abdulmutallab showed no signs of intolerance toward other students, Rimmer said, explaining that "lots of his mates were Christians."

The Briton noted that he has not seen or heard from his former pupil since 2003.

A Nigerian newspaper, ThisDay, said Abdulmutallab began to show his increasingly radical views on Islam during his high school days at the British International School in Lome, Togo.

Basketball Player

Efemena Mokedi remembered Abdulmutallab from their days on the basketball team at the exclusive school as "a smart kid" and "a friendly person."

"He was a very religious person, a very honest person. He was friends with all the teachers," said Mokedi, who now lives in the United States, in an interview broadcast on the BBC. "Yes, I'm very surprised. ... This is really out of how he is as a person. This is unexpected ... He's a very good guy, a very good chap."

Students at his prestigious university in London, where Abdulmutallab lived in a smart white stone apartment block in an exclusive area of central London, said Abdulmutallab showed no signs of radicalization and painted him as a lax student with deep religious views.

"We worked on projects together," Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering student at University College, told The Independent newspaper. "He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes. When we were studying, he always would go off to pray.

"He was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. I didn't get to talk to him much on a personal level. I was really shocked when I saw the reports. You would never imagine him pulling off something like this."

A message left with Marincola was not immediately returned on Sunday.

U.K. Visa Refused

University College London said Abdulmutallab was enrolled at the school from September 2005 to June 2008. In Nigeria, the father of Abdulmutallab said his son had been a student in London, but had left the city to travel.

Citing U.K. government sources, the BBC reported that the suspect was refused a visa to return to Britain earlier this year after he attempted to apply for a course at a non-existent college.

ThisDay, the newspaper, said Abdulmutallab left London at some point to move to Egypt, then Dubai. The government in Dubai could not immediately confirm he visited that country. A security official in Egypt said there were no records to indicate Abdulmutallab entered Egypt or had any connection to Egypt.

The security official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.



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