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WASHINGTON - For hours after allegedly trying to use a bomb hidden in his underwear to blow up a Christmas Day flight to Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab talked and talked — to U.S. Customs officers, medical personnel, and FBI agents. He spoke openly about what he'd done and why, and provided valuable intelligence, U.S. officials told The Associated Press in a series of interviews that spell out for the first time the details of Abdulmutallab's arrest and questioning on Dec. 25. Badly burned and bleeding, the suspect tried one last gambit as he was taken from the plane: He claimed...

WASHINGTON — Badly burned and bleeding, the suspect in the Christmas Day flight to Detroit tried one last gambit as he was led away: He claimed there was another bomb hidden on the plane he'd just tried to destroy, officials said. There was no second bomb, federal agents learned after a tense search. But the Nigerian suspect's threat began hours of conversations that are now the subject of a fierce political debate over the right way to handle terrorism suspects. In interviews with The Associated Press, U.S. officials described for the first time the details of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's arrest...

Buried three paragraphs from the end of the report in today's Washington Post comes what ought to be the lede: Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense attorney, according to federal officials. It sounds like he was singing when they first got him, and of course we now know that the government already had enough information on him to justify sending a Blackwater hit team after him, but now that the people with all that information are finally in a position to ask the questions...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US spy agencies in recent months picked up clues pointing to an Al-Qaeda attack out of Yemen and were moving to disrupt it, but a crucial piece of information fell through the cracks. Intelligence officials describe a trail of warning signs for the botched Christmas Day attack on a US-bound airliner dating back to August, when the National Security Agency reportedly intercepted chatter among Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. The NSA, which runs an elaborate global eavesdropping operation, heard conversations from Al-Qaeda figures describing a plot to recruit a Nigerian man for a terrorist attack, the New York...

Nearly every public statement by President Barack Obama these days contains a reference or two to "my counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, John Brennan." Once a rare TV guest, he did four Sunday shows back-to-back. White House briefings and releases are peppered with mentions of the newly ubiquitous adviser – sometimes referred to simply as "John" by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Some of Brennan’s associates even think the White House is maneuvering him to become Director of National Intelligence or CIA director in time. Taken together, it's an abrupt step into the public eye by an intelligence veteran who has...

January 09, 2010, 7:00 a.m. But We’re Still Gonna Kill YouIsolated extremists? This “war” is about the intersection of Islam and the West. By Mark Steyn Not long after the Ayatollah Khomeini announced his fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the British novelist suddenly turned up on a Muslim radio station in West London late one night and told his interviewer he’d converted to Islam. Marvelous religion, couldn’t be happier, Allahu Akbar and all that. And the Ayatollah said hey, that’s terrific news, glad to hear it. But we’re still gonna kill you. Well, even a leftie novelist wises up under...

The Obama administration has repeatedly said the failure to connect intelligence reports that might have prevented the Christmas Day bombing attempt was not because spy agencies failed to share information. Instead, John Brennan, assistant to the president for counterterrorism and homeland security, said top intel officials simply didn't understand all the intelligence pointing to a possible terrorist attack, which came true when a Nigerian national tried to blow up a U.S. airliner with a bomb in his underwear.

National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter didn't cut his holiday ski trip short upon learning of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner Christmas Day, the New York Daily News reports. Leiter, who is in charge of analyzing terror threats, reportedly didn't return to his office post in McLean, Va., until several days after the holiday, and his decision to do so has been looked down upon by intelligence officials. "People have been grumbling that he didn't let a little terrorism interrupt his vacation," a source told the Daily News.

In a big speech today, the POTUS cited "unacceptable" failures in the American intelligence system that allowed an accused terrorist to board a U.S.-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day, and promised changes to avert future plots. He also said that officials in some unnamed federal agencies have taken "responsibility for what went wrong" in their operations while avoiding blame for any one individual or department in particular. He said of the slip-ups "That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it," Obama said. "We have to do better, and we will do better. And we have to do it...

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen says it has reopened after Yemeni forces successfully dealt with a security threat that prompted its closure for two days. The U.S. mission in Sana'a said Yemen had addressed a "specific area of concern" by conducting a counter-terrorism operation Monday north of Sana'a. It also warned that the threat of terrorism against American interests in Yemen remains high. The British Embassy in Sanna'a also reopened Tuesday but kept its public services suspended. The United States and Britain closed their embassies in Sana'a Sunday due to warnings of a possible al-Qaida attack. Yemen says its forces...

The evening before he was sworn into office, Barack Obama stepped out of Blair House, the government residence where he was staying across from the White House, and climbed into an armored limousine for the ride to a bipartisan dinner. Joining him in the back seat were John Brennan, his new counterterrorism adviser, and two foreign-policy advisers, Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert. The three men with the president-elect were out of breath, having rushed more than a mile from transition headquarters on foot after failing to find a taxi in Washington’s preinaugural madness. As the motorcade moved out, they updated...

Brennan: system worked 'every other day' in '09 - POLITICO Live: Brennan: system worked 'every other day' in '09 January 03, 2010 Categories: * Homeland Security Brennan: system worked 'every other day' in '09 White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan is maintaining the system to protect the U.S. against attack worked successfully this year apart from the Christmas Day bombing attempt -a claim that seems to downplay the notion that deadly attacks at Fort Hood in Texas and a military recruiting center in Arkansas represented a failure of intelligence gathering. Asked Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press" about the lead-up...

The U.S. government's counterterrorism system is using top-flight technology and, despite the apparent failure to predict the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner, isn't lagging behind innovators in Silicon Valley, White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser John Brennan said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "In the era of Google, why does the U.S. intelligence community not have the sophistication and power of Facebook?" ABC host Terry Moran asked Brennan. "Well, in fact, we do have the sophistication and power of Facebook, and well beyond that. That's why we were able to stop Mr. Najibullah Zazi, David Headley,...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top counterterrorism official is warning that al-Qaida and other extremists are working to test U.S. defenses and launch an attack on American soil.</p> <p>National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter says the failed Christmas Day attempt to bring down a U.S. airliner is the starkest reminder of that threat.</p>

The finger-pointing began in earnest on Wednesday over who in the alphabet soup of American security agencies knew what and when about the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up an airliner. But the harshest spotlight fell on the very agency created to make sure intelligence dots were always connected: the National Counterterrorism Center. The crown jewel of intelligence reform after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the center was the hub whose mission was to unite every scrap of data on threats and suspects, to make sure an extremist like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be bomber, would never penetrate...

Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: 'I was visited by the FBI' December 31, 2009, 9:41AM Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in comment sections across MLive on Wednesday. Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the plane. They say another man tried to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in Amsterdam. Haskell had two detailed posts in two different stories. Here is Part One, originally posted here: "Today is the second worst day of...

For two hours on Wednesday, Times Square morphed into a militarized zone as the police swarmed an unoccupied van with blacked out windows and no license plates parked in an area set aside for Thursday’s New Year’s Eve celebration. Officials said that nothing harmful was found in the van. But the scare illustrated the challenges for local, state and federal law enforcement agencies as they confront an array of security concerns when revelers flood the streets Thursday to ring in 2010. To prepare for the festivities, thousands of police officers, including 250 rookies, will descend on Times Square , said...

The chief lesson of the attempted jihad attack on Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day is that our entire anti-terror strategy is a huge and abject failure. Of course, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano would beg to differ, as she has said that the stopping of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempt to set off an explosive on the airplane showed that “the system worked” and “everything happened that should have.” The “system worked”? So the “system” now involves hoping that other passengers will tackle the jihadist? After all, a passenger on Flight 253, Jasper Schuringa, subdued Abdulmutallab. The...

President Obama vowed to track down and destroy terror cells all over the world last night as he finally ended his silence over a failed Christmas Day plot to blow up an American passenger jet. The White House said Mr Obama’s reticence to speak out was designed to reduce the attention focused on an extremist group based in Yemen calling itself al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The Islamist organisation led by a former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the botched attack in a statement yesterday. The President took a few minutes out of his holiday in...

VS. WHO: Yeffet Isaac, Former Director of El-Al Airlines Security -VS.- Ibrahim Hooper Executive Director of C.A.I.R.WHAT: A Well Overdue DEBATEWHEN: As Soon As PossibleWHERE: LIVE NATIONWIDE on American TV, CNN, FOX, Major Networks, Radio Stations, NPR, etc., With Studio Audience Able to Ask QuestionsWHY: America dodged a major bullet on Christmas Day in Detroit. Reports are that additional terrorist acts involving US airliners are probably on the way. El-Al has a clean record of never being attacked by Islamist Extremists. C.A.I.R. has stated that the US should not, at all costs, racially and religiously profile passengers in the...

Not enough data to put suspect on no-fly list: official Photo 7:33pm EST KAILUA, Hawaii (Reuters) - The government created a record on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in November 2009 in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the intelligence community's central repository of information on known and suspected international terrorists, but there was not enough negative information to put him on a no-fly list, a U.S. administration official said on Saturday. "There was insufficient derogatory information available on the subject

The man law enforcement officials identified as the suspect in Friday's attempted attack on a overseas flight as it approached Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, is a Nigerian who was reportedly on a U.S. government terror watch list but did not appear on a "no-fly" list. Mutallab, 23, reportedly told investigators he had links to al-Qaida. The Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam carried 278 passengers and a crew of 11. An U.S. intelligence official said Mutallab tried unsuccessfully to detonate an explosive mix of powder and liquid. He was quickly subdued by other passengers. NBC News, citing anti-terrorism officials, said...

The Metropolitan Police are carrying out searches in the UK after a suspected al Qaeda operative allegedly attempted to blow up a US passenger jet. The man, said to be a student at a British university, is accused of trying to blow up a transatlantic aeroplane with explosives strapped to his leg on Christmas Day. The Nigerian man caused panic as the jet was about to land at Detroit with 278 people aboard when he apparently tried to detonate some sort of bomb. He was overpowered by passengers and crew after the device failed to ignite properly. Sources have since...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/December/09-nsd-1338.html FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, December 14, 2009 Terrorism Defendants Sentenced in Atlanta Ehsanul Islam Sadequee Receives 17 Years in Prison; Co-defendant Syed Haris Ahmed Receives 13 Years Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 23, of Roswell, Ga., and Syed Haris Ahmed, 25, of Atlanta, were sentenced today in federal court following their convictions earlier this year in separate but related criminal trials, the Justice Department announced. "With their words and their actions, these defendants supported the wrongheaded but very dangerous idea that armed violence aimed at American interests will force our Government and our people...

From the shootings at Fort Hood to the civil war battlegrounds of Somalia, 2009 revealed more jihadist activities involving Americans than almost any year since the 9/11 attacks, say experts. There were at least 12 incidents in total, not including the recent arrests of five Virginia men in Pakistan on suspicion of trying to join jihadist militants. With the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq fueling anger among some Muslim Americans, experts say jihadist propaganda is gaining a foothold in the United States, with hundreds of English-language Web sites. Radical English-speaking clerics such as Anwar al-Awlaki, who corresponded with Major...

U.S. counterterrorism officials say 2009 has turned into the year of homegrown jihad, with the unmasking of the most serious suspected terror plots involving Americans in about five years. U.S. investigators are still trying to determine what drew five young Americans to travel last month to Pakistan, where local authorities allege they had sought to join extremist groups that have attacked U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. U.S. investigators have interviewed some of the men, but haven't verified the information Pakistani officials have released on the case. The surge in alleged terror cases has raised concerns among counterterrorism officials. Some officials say...

Reporting from Washington - The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism. Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia.

When the history of the War on Terror is written, 2009 may be seen as the year the enemy began to shift from Islamist terrorists outside the US to homegrown Jihadists. Despite the fact that it was predicted two years ago, many are still surprised (or unwilling to recognize), the Islamist threat from within. Back in 2007 the Council on Foreign Relations reported: Experts say it is quite likely the next terrorist attack in the United States will not be the work of well-trained al-Qaeda operatives sent from abroad, but rather that of an American citizen. As al-Qaeda leaders focus...

SNIPPET: "A team of researchers convened by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began a series of tests today at 20 MBTA stations to determine how airborne contaminants would spread in a terrorist attack on Boston's subway system." SNIPPET: "The findings will help guide the design of future detection systems and help strengthen evacuation, ventilation, and other emergency response plans on mass transit across the country. "We hope to use the data from the two to come up with a model to predict the behavior (of chemicals) in other subway systems," Lustig said."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned that al-Qaida followers are inside the U.S. and pose the threat of terrorist attacks on Americans. “The fact is that home-based terrorism is here,” she said in an address to the American-Israel Friendship League in New York on Wednesday night. “And like extremism abroad, it is now part of the threat picture that we must confront." “Individuals sympathetic to al-Qaida and its affiliates, as well as those inspired by their ideology, are present in the U.S., and would like to attack the homeland or plot overseas attacks against our interests abroad.” Napolitano said a...

This October, Chris Soghoian — computer security researcher, oft-times journalist, and current technical consultant for the FTC's privacy protection office — attended a closed-door conference called "ISS World". ISS World — the "ISS" is for "Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Gathering" — is where law enforcement and intelligence agencies consult with telco representatives and surveillance equipment manufacturers about the state of electronic surveillance technology and practice. Armed with a tape recorder, Soghoian went to the conference looking for information about the scope of the government's surveillance practices in the US. What Soghoian uncovered, as he...

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russia's Orthodox Church Sunday called on authorities to give a "powerful reply" to the people behind a train bombing that killed 25 people, as police probed whether Islamist rebels were involved. A blast derailed a high-speed Russian train Friday night on the main line between Moscow and Russia's second city, St Petersburg, raising fears of a new wave of attacks five years after a bombing campaign in Moscow by Chechen rebels. "We believe the reply will be effective and powerful enough to show these shameful, terrible people that ... when the hand of an...

NEW YORK (AP) — In what could be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, federal prosecutors sought to take over four U.S. mosques, a New York City skyscraper and 100 acres in Prince William County owned by a Muslim organization suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government. Prosecutors on Thursday filed a civil complaint in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday he would insist on an "exacting" form of justice for alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. An Obama administration official said earlier that Mohammed and four other men accused of helping to plot the attacks would be sent to criminal court in New York from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In what could be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, federal prosecutors sought to take over four U.S. mosques and a New York City skyscraper owned by a Muslim organization suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government. Prosecutors on Thursday filed a civil complaint in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets. The assets include bank accounts; Islamic centers consisting of schools and mosques in New York, Maryland, California and Houston; more than 100 acres in Virginia; and a 36-story Manhattan office tower. Confiscating the properties would...

I don't know if I can post copy from The Bulletin website. Go to this: http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/11/10/top_stories/doc4af9ba9ddb2ef623854371.txt

Neo-Nazis took to the streets in Arizona and Minnesota this weekend, a new boldness that officials say echoes the homegrown terrorism of the 1990s. James Verini talks to the extremists leading the charge. A year after President Obama's election, hate groups are feeling bolder than they have in over a decade, and their usually insular anger is beginning to spill into the public realm. This weekend, the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, held rallies in Arizona and Minnesota. Those demonstrations came on the heels of similar actions in Southern California, where epithet-spewing white supremacists were forced to disband by...

"Overseas, you are ready for it. But here, you can't even defend yourself," said Jerry Richard, a Fort Hood solider who was nearby when Major Nidal Hasan went on his shooting rampage. What do the Pentagon bureaucrats have to say about that? If soliders on this base had been allowed to carry the weapons they use overseas, the service weapons they train with, Hasan would have been able to shoot perhaps one or two people, not 41. (As of this writing, 13 are dead, 28 wounded.) "It's a tragedy to lose soldiers overseas and even more horrifying when they come...

It's been another dreadful week in the war of civilizations. On Sunday, 153 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in back-to-back car bombings in Baghdad. On Tuesday in Kabul, five UN staffers and three Afghans were killed in an attack on a UN guesthouse. And on Wednesday in Pakistan, 100 people - mostly women and children - were killed and 160 wounded in a shopping district bombing in Peshawar. The week also saw 24 American service personnel killed in Afghanistan, making 58 fatalities for the month - the deadliest since 9/11. This is a war of civilizations in...

Will Heaven is a writer who specialises in politics and religion. He can be emailed at will.heaven@telegraph.co.uk and is @WillHeaven on Twitter. SNIPPET: "The experts are certainly surprised by this latest development in online communication between terrorists and those who study or attempt to counter them. Charles Cameron reckons this “a historic moment at the intersection of internet and the military”. He’s certainly right."

The leader of an Islamic mosque in Detroit, Mich., was shot and killed during an FBI raid Wednesday-- now the search is on for others involved. Luqman Ameen Abdullah told his followers that a revolution on American soil could not succeed without violence. He said he was willing to fight the FBI, even if it meant death, to accomplish that goal. Abdullah got his wish on Wednesday. He was killed in a shootout with FBI agents at a warehouse in Dearborn, Mich., just outside of Detroit. Abdullah opened fire on the agents after they attempted to arrest him on charges...

The fugitive son of an Imam shot dead by U.S. federal agents Wednesday was arrested Thursday in downtown Windsor and in the custody Canadian border authorities, the FBI said in a statement. Mujahid Carswell, 30, also known as Mujahid Abdullah, was arrested by RCMP officers at about 1 p.m. Thursday without incident after police blocked off a downtown street and surrounded a house with a tactical team. He was witnessed being whisked away in a prisoner transport van and is currently in the custody of the Canada Border Services Agency on immigration violations. Mr. Carswell is the oldest son of...

DETROIT — Federal authorities on Wednesday arrested several members of a radical Sunni Islam group in the U.S., killing one of its leaders at a shootout in a Michigan warehouse, the U.S. attorney's office said. Agents were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, at a Dearborn warehouse on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Authorities also conducted raids elsewhere to try to round up 10 followers named in a federal complaint.

DETROIT–A man described as a leader of a radical Sunni Islam group in the U.S. was fatally shot this afternoon while resisting arrest and exchanging gunfire with federal agents, authorities said. Agents at a warehouse in Dearborn were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Ten followers listed in a criminal complaint were also being rounded up in the area. Three – Mujahid Carswell, 30, Mohammad Alsahi, 33, and Yassir Ali Khan, 30 – are Ontario residents, the FBI said in a release. Abdullah...

DETROIT -- The Detroit leader of a nationwide fundamentalist Islamic group was fatally shot during a series of FBI raids Wednesday afternoon. The FBI arrested 10 people who have ties to the group called the Ummah, which translates to “the brotherhood.” The group’s primary mission is to establish a separate sovereign Islamic state governed by Sunni law, according to FBI charging documents.

Federal authorities say a leader of what they describe as a nationwide radical Sunni Islam group has been fatally shot during an FBI raid in the Detroit area. The U.S. attorney's office in Detroit says Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah refused to surrender during an FBI raid Wednesday and was killed in an exchange of gunfire. Abdullah and 10 others were charged in a complaint with conspiracy to commit several federal crimes, including illegal possession and sale of firearms and theft from interstate shipments. Authorities say an FBI dog also was killed during the raid.

Lydia Khalil, a former counterterrorism analyst for the New York Police Department, and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations looks at homegrown terrorism, recent plots and arrests and what they may signify. The apprehension last week of Sudbury native Tarek Mehanna is the fifth terrorism-related arrest in the United States in as many months, putting homegrown radicalism back on the radar screen. But many question whether individuals like Mehanna are the “real deal.’’ Do they really pose a significant terrorist threat or are they acting out but lack the capability to inflict any real damage? How dangerous are...

The FBI this month arrested a second Chicago man allegedly involved in an international terrorist plot with Western European targets, the Tribune has learned. The man was taken into custody Oct. 3 before he boarded a flight at O'Hare International Airport to Philadelphia, the first stop on a trip to Pakistan, where he planned to meet people with known ties to terrorist organizations that have carried out fatal attacks that resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens, a source said. He has not been charged.

Do counter-terrorism measures targeting bombers who dress as women offend the rights of transexuals? This is one of the pressing questions addressed in a new United Nations report on "Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism."

Nothing pisses off progressives more, than a perceived infringement on people's rights especially if it has the potential of saving thousands of lives. To those progressive the FISA bill (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) was the definition of evil. The bill prescribed prescribes for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers." This is the bill that was made famous because it allowed for "warrantless wiretaps" under certain conditions. Last summer, after much debate. FISA was renewed. The debate centered around a provision which granted immunity from prosecution for the...