Detroit terror attack: United States 'plans retaliatory attacks on Yemeni soil'

The London Telegraph ^ | December 31, 2009 | Aislinn Laing

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Intelligence efforts are said to be focused on finding those involved in the plot to get Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the Northwest Airlines plane with explosives in his underwear.

Security officials are also likely to identify other "high value" al Qaeda targets who could be the target of strikes.

The suggestion comes as US President Barack Obama condemned the "systemic failures" that saw intelligence about a Nigerian trained in Yemen planning a bomb attack squandered with the potential cost of hundreds of lives.

Mr Obama called for "lessons to be learned" over the failures to link up intelligence. The terror suspect has told his interrogators that there are many more insurgents preparing to attack the West – diplomats have revealed that at least six British students have been arrested and deported from Yemen in the last year for allegedly trying to join radical Muslims.

America is now said to be focusing its fight against al Qaeda on Yemen in a bid to enforce the point that "attacking America does not go unpunished", a security source told The Guardian.

"First we have to find out who put Abdulmutallab on the plane with the bomb," the US official, who works alongside intelligence organisations, is reported as saying.

"He's providing some leads and we're not dealing with an unknown quantity here. We've been watching and listening to what goes on in Yemen and we may have pieces of the puzzle already and just need to fit it together.(continued)

[Little Ray]

Avoid “weddings” too.