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Abdulmutallab trained by ex-Gitmo prisoner
The list, released in May, names 27 former prisoners who resumed terrorist activities after being released from Guantanamo, including Said Ali al-Shihri, who was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and later implicated in the bombing of the US embassy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, last year. ABC television named Muhammad Attik al-Harbi, a former al-Qa'ida leader in Yemen, as another unrepentant former Guantanamo prisoner. Yemen's role as an al-Qa'ida haven has come under renewed public scrutiny in the wake of a Nigerian man's alleged attempt to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airline plane as it approached to land in Detroit on Friday. US law enforcement official have said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, confessed to receiving specific training for the attack from an al-Qa'ida bombmaker in Yemen. An al-Qa'ida affiliate in the Arabian peninsula claimed yesterday that it was behind the failed bombing, and threatened new attacks on the West, US monitoring groups said. The two-page statement, which was accompanied by a picture of Abdulmutallab, boasted that the "Nigerian brother . . . was able to breach all the modern and sophisticated technologies and checkpoints at the airports around the world". The US government remains cautious in linking the suspect to al-Qa'ida, which has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. It has strengthened its presence in Yemen by exploiting the loose control of the central government over the heavily tribalised provinces. Posted by: Steve White 2009-12-30 |
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