Showing posts with label Christmas bomber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas bomber. Show all posts
"The threat was very real. Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale."
The NYT reports on an Oregon teenager's attempt to blow up fake explosives — given him by the FBI — that he thought were real. According to the FBI, he wanted to kill everyone who showed up for a Christmas tree lighting in Portland.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.ADDED: I already had the tag "Christmas bomber," so I used that again. There's a new spin on the "War on Christmas."
Yelling "Allahu Akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" — Mohamud tried to kick agents and police after he was taken into custody, according to prosecutors....
[T]he sting operation began in June after an undercover agent learned that Mohamud had been in regular e-mail contact with an "unindicted associate" in Pakistan's northwest, a frontier region where al-Qaida and Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents are strong....
Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.
Some facts about the Christmas Day bomber:
1. He was an engineering student who lived in a $4 million apartment in London.
2. His father, a banker, warned American authorities about his son months ago. (How much will Obama be blamed?)
3. His bombing was interrupted by a passenger, Dutch video director Jasper Schuringa, who heard a noise and saw that "he was holding a burning object between his legs. 'I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away.'"
4. "He was staring into nothing."
ADDED: Mutallab had a 2-year visa that was issued in 2008, and "the initial information was not specific enough to raise alarms that he could potentially carry out a terrorist attack":
1. He was an engineering student who lived in a $4 million apartment in London.
2. His father, a banker, warned American authorities about his son months ago. (How much will Obama be blamed?)
3. His bombing was interrupted by a passenger, Dutch video director Jasper Schuringa, who heard a noise and saw that "he was holding a burning object between his legs. 'I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away.'"
4. "He was staring into nothing."
ADDED: Mutallab had a 2-year visa that was issued in 2008, and "the initial information was not specific enough to raise alarms that he could potentially carry out a terrorist attack":
“The information was passed into the system, but the expression of radical extremist views were very nonspecific,” said the senior administration official, who has been briefed on the inquiry but spoke on condition of anonymity because it is continuing. “We were evaluating him, but the information we had was not a lot to go on.”Satisfied with the job the administration is doing protecting us from terrorism? George Bush protected the American homeland after 9/11. Is Obama taking it seriously enough? Would Bush have kept Mutallab off that plane?
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