Free Republic

SNIPPET: "Discussion: I first observed discussion of binary explosives on the al-Firdaws forum in January of 2007. In light of recent events I will post here my archive:" SNIPPET: "Implementation: On Christmas Day, 2009, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab boards a flight in Amsterdam, bound for Detroit, and on final descent he attempts to set off what was most likely a binary explosive. Thank goodness he either screwed up or had bad instructions, because the chemicals he was working with were evidently quite good."

UMAR Farouk Abdulmutallab is a sexually frustrated loner who nurtured fantasies about holy war, his internet use reportedly reveals. The twisted mind of the alleged bomber emerged in chilling messages he is said to have posted on an Islamic web forum, UK tabloid The Sun reports. The Sun retrieved 300 of them in a special investigation into the suspected al-Qaeda fanatic. In one, posted in 2005 when he was 19, he wrote: "I wont go into too much details about me fantasy, but basically they are jihad fantasies. "I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the Muslims...

THE THWARTED Christmas Day airplane bombing raises three causes for alarm. First, it illustrates a screening system that remains porous enough to let a suspect board with the same explosive shoe-bomber Richard Reid attempted to use in 2001. Second, it exposes a terrorism bureaucracy too clumsy to catapult the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, at least to a higher level of preflight scrutiny after his father came forward with warnings that he might pose a danger. Third, if it is true that the suspect received explosives training from al-Qaeda in Yemen, the incident underscores the emergence of that troubled nation as...