Posted on 12/25/2009 7:17:19 PM PST by kristinn
An al Qaida-linked suspect who allegedly tried to blow up a transatlantic plane is studying at a UK university, it has been reported.
The Nigerian is accused of trying to detonate a powdery substance on a plane from Amsterdam as it prepared to land at Detroit with 278 people on board.
US sources said he was subdued by passengers and has since claimed to have been acting for al Qaida.
He has been named by ABC News as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, an engineering student at University College London, with the broadcaster citing US government documents.
The suspect, who has also been identified as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab in other reports, is currently under guard at a Michigan hospital.
He was flying from Nigeria to the United States for a religious ceremony according to his entry visa, ABC News said, which was issued on June 16 last year and valid until June 12, 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at thisislondon.co.uk ...
http://luishipolito.blogspot.com/2009/12/al-qaeda-looking-to-yemen-as-next-base.html
“he was jumped on by two passagers who put the fire out and held him.”
I hope every person traveling by plane will be ready to fight instantly as these two passengers were. Everyone needs to be very much aware of the person next to them.
Would’ve been good if 50 had jumped on him.
this site says it arrived at the gate at 12:01
http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightStatus/flightStatusByFlight.do?airline=%28NW%29+Northwest+Airlines&flightNumber=253&departureDate=2009-12-25&x=29&y=8
which means it landed before that...
That is a dangerous mo fo.
thanks
“...not on the no-fly list because his terrorist ties were not aviation related.”
Mother of God! They’d put all of us FReepers on the “no fly” list if they could, but a person with honest-to-God terrorist ties, no.
I really am in the damn Matrix. Grumble, grumble, grumble...
A US soldier asks a cleric if it is okay to kill US soldiers...and he is deemed not to be a threat...
so what do you expect...
What was the movie with Denzel Washington where he placed the dynamite up the guys rear, then got information, then left?
Is that worse than waterboarding you think?
What's the relevance?
“On December 25th, 2009 at 4:52 pm, rignerd said:
There is still a danger from fire crackers.
When combined with a powdery substance like flour, they can disperse it into the air and ignite it to cause a substantial explosion.
Look up grain silo explosion to see what I mean.”
I agree with this and other comments — keep them all off our planes until their governments take serious action to weed out their miscreants. Institute ‘El-Al’ type profiling & verification.
Greetings from United States Americo. My grandpater was one time assistant Ruler of this grate Nation, but was deposed by rite-wing zealots/revultionerys.
He left me One hondred bullion dollers but rite-wing zelotes have kept it from me, his ritefl hair.
I hav hilie placed contact in knew govt who willl send this fortune to your bank acct in Nigeria. Alll you must do is go too Yimen, wher you wil be given a bag of white powder and a syringge of liquid. Then, you well flie to Detroit. US america....
Has anyone seen/heard any theories as to why he tried to detonate it right before landing instead of over the ocean?
If nothing else, a fiery crash at the airport would be “ spectacular “, AQ likes to go for that , “wow” factor. They’re sick SOBs.
Maximize casualties by blowing up an aircraft over an urban area.
A bit of a punch to go along with the slap.
Mostly because he’s a self-recruit. He wasn’t some young twerp who was filled with notions of 72 doe-eyed virgins and the like.
The older self-recruits are always the deadliest. Consider OBL, KSH, et al as self-recruits at an older age than the typical premature detonation type.
Terrorists want to terrorize. They need the media to do half of their work for them.
There’s little terror effect upon the wider populace for blowing up a plane where no one would see it go down.
Blow it up on final as it is coming in over a very densely populated area... where there is plenty of media that will be on the scene in mere minutes... and you’ve got a far higher “terror” potential than a plane that just disappears over oceans.
Militarily, there were far better attacks that could have been made instead of 9/11. Terrorists could have taken down huge swathes of the US power grid, creating a huge national turmoil. They could have poisoned major US urban water systems. They could have done a great many things with the number of people they had, yet they chose to attack the WTC with airplanes. Why? Because the majority of the national news media is there in NYC. There was a huge media coverage of the event - live, in full color, from many, many camera angles. The media did the rest of their work for them, in grand style.
Good point. Sick SOBs is right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.