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(Washington Post) — The youngest of 16 children of a prominent Nigerian bank executive, and the son of the second of his father’s two wives, Abdulmutallab was raised at the family home in Kaduna, a city in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated north, relatives there said. He graduated with an engineering degree from City University in London. Later, his father sent him to Dubai to study for an advanced business degree.
In July, relatives said, his father agreed to his request to study Arabic in Yemen. The family became concerned in August when Abdulmutallab called to say he had dropped the course but would remain in Yemen for an undisclosed purpose. Several days later, they said, he sent a text message saying he was severing all ties with his family.
Relatives said that message provoked his father’s visits to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and to the Nigerian intelligence service. U.S. intelligence officials insisted Sunday that the visit did not occur until mid-November.
Abdulmutallab’s movements after that are unclear, although Nigeria’s Information Minister Dora Akunyili said Sunday that he “sneaked” into the country on the 24th. He paid cash for a ticket on a Dec. 24 KLM flight from Lagos to Amsterdam, connecting to Northwest 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day.
“The e-ticket was purchased from KLM airport office in Accra [Ghana] on 16th December 2009,” Harold Demuren, a Nigerian aviation official, told a news conference in Lagos. “His passport was scanned, his U.S. visa was scanned, and the APIS [Advanced Passenger Information System] returned with no objection.”
The reforms set up the National Counterterrorism Center, which administers a huge database of terrorism information called the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE.
Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world — field assessments, captured documents, news from foreign allies and the media, and reports from worried fathers — pour into the NCTC computers in McLean. At 11 each night, selected information from TIDE is downloaded into the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, administered by the FBI. Overnight entries are examined each morning by an interagency team drawn from across the government.
Under FBI direction, individuals assessed as significant risks are then “nominated” to specific watch lists, each of which has different criteria. In addition to the “no-fly” and “selectee” lists, the State Department maintains a list of people who should not be granted visas; other lists single out people who cross land borders and domestic fugitives.
In Abdulmutallab’s case, a single, non-specific entry in TIDE was not enough to send his information to the TSDB, so he was never considered for a watch list. Among the gaps in the system already being addressed by computer technicians, officials said, is the absence of an “automatic feedback loop” that would have let TIDE know that the random report from Nigeria referred to a man who already had a valid U.S. entry visa, issued more than a year before.
80 grams PETN Powder and Syringe hidden in underwear
Abdulmutallab was able to carry the powdery substance undetected by concealing it on the inside of his upper thigh, close to his groin – an area likely to avoid detection even by the most conscientious of security officials.
It would appear that he was allowed to take a syringe containing a liquid on board the aircraft by apparently taking advantage of airlines’ policy of allowing diabetics to inject themselves during flight.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Daily-Mail) Oct. 5, 2009 – Al-Qaeda has reportedly developed a deadly explosive device that can be hidden in suicide bomber’s intestine and go undetected at airport security checkpoints.
Recently, an Al-Qaeda militant, Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri, passed through several airline security checks with such a bomb hidden in his intestine and made a failed attempt to assassinate a prominent Saudi Prince. Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef is the head of Saudi Arabia’s counter terrorism operations.
According to security experts, the explosive and an electronic detonator were probably contained in a long thin animal gut casing to protect it from stomach acid.
The Saudis believe the bomb weighed 100gm and was made with PETN plastic explosive, to avoid detection by airport and other metal detectors.
“While not wanting to be alarmist, I admit this is alarming,” Richard Barrett, head of the United Nations al-Qaeda and Taliban monitoring group was quoted as saying.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
