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| CIA admits tracking 'The Nigerian' before NorthWest terror attack | ||
| 2009-12-29 | ||
| THE CIA was tracking a person of interest known as "The Nigerian" - who was in fact airline bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - as early as August, CBS News reports. The connection between "The Nigerian" and Mr Abdulmutallab was not made when the 23-year-old's father contacted the US embassy in Nigeria in November to warn them of his son's radicalisation. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the intelligence agency did not have Mr Abdulmutallab's name until November. And they did not know he was "The Nigerian" until after his attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day. "In November, we worked with the embassy to ensure he was in the Government's terrorist database-including mention of his possible extremist connections in Yemen," Mr Gimigliano said. "We also forwarded key biographical information about him to the National Counter-terrorism Center. "This agency, like others in our Government, is reviewing all data to which it had access - not just what we ourselves may have collected - to determine if more could have been done to stop Abdulmutallab."
Explosives had been sewn into them. As the plane approached Detroit the material ignited, shooting 1.8m flames up the cabin wall. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has claimed the attack, said the device failed because of a "faulty detonator".
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| Posted by:tipper |
| #2 "...our Government, is reviewing all data to which it had access - not just what we ourselves may have collected - to determine if more could have been done to stop Abdulmutallab." What else could they possibly do? Maybe not give a visa to someone who is suspected to be a terrorist by the CIA if the person has been reported by his father to western authorities as having radical Islamist beliefs. No that is not sufficient, they have not been convicted of any crime. Who are we to be the determiner of who is or is not a terrorist? |
| Posted by: Hank 2009-12-29 23:33 |
| #1 A shining example of the seam in our society these scumbags operate in. The CIA can't go after every nutjob in the world. They can't go after him until they get him acting or planning, not shooting his mouth. Nigeria's population is half full of people that hate America. Every 20something kid there wants to cap an american or be one. There are 500,000 people on that watch list they put him on. The police can't do anything until there is a crime. They have no jurisdiction in Nigeria. I guess we could deny all visa's from Nigeria, guess we should have done that 40 years ago! The issue is how do we find track, decide relevance, and then act? When our nation is prepared to do this correctly we can get to most of these. Until then we will continue to swat flies. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2009-12-29 21:49 |