Father alerted U.S. to airliner suspect

London police enter a building Saturday during a search connected with the attempted terrorist attack on a Northwest Airlines flight on Friday.
London police enter a building Saturday during a search connected with the attempted terrorist attack on a Northwest Airlines flight on Friday.

— A 23-year-old Nigerian man who claimed to have ties to al-Qaida was charged Saturday with trying to destroy a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, as authorities learned his father had warned U.S. officials of concerns about his son.

The suspect on the flight from Amsterdam claimed to have received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, a law enforcement official said on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

In light of the botched attack, aides to President Barack Obama are pondering how terror-watch lists are used, according to officials who described the discussions Saturday on the condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt possible official announcements.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.,chairman of a House Homeland Security subcommittee, said there were “strong suggestions of a Yemen-al Qaida connection and an intent to blow up the plane over U.S. airspace.” Several officials said they have not seen independent confirmation.

The Justice Department charged that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab willfully attempted to destroy or wreck an aircraft, and that he placed a destructive device in the plane.

U.S. District Judge Paul Borman read Abdulmutallab the charges in a conference room at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, where he is being treated for burns.

An affidavit said he had attached to his body a device that contained a high explosive. As Northwest Flight 253 descended toward Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Abdulmutallab set off the device - sparking a fire instead of an explosion, the affidavit said.

According to the affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, a preliminary analysis of the device showed it contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol.

This was the same material that Richard Reid, now serving a life sentence, hid in his shoes when he tried unsuccessfully to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight on Dec. 22, 2001.

PETN is often used in military explosives and found inside blasting caps. But terrorists like it because it’s small and powerful.

The suspect smiled when he was wheeled into the hospital conference room. He had a bandage on his left thumb and right wrist, and part of the skin on the thumb was burned off.

He was wearing a light green hospital robe and blue hospital socks. The judge sat at the far end of a 10-foottable, the suspect at the other end.

Borman asked the defendant whether he was pronouncing his name correctly.

Abdulmutallab responded, in English: “Yes, that’s fine.” The judge asked Abdulmutallab if he understood the charges against him. He responded in English: “Yes, I do.”

The judge said the suspect would be assigned a public defender and set a detention hearing for Jan. 8. Saturday’s hearing lasted 20 minutes.

Attorney General Eric Holder made clear that the United States will look beyond Abdulmutallab. He vowed to “use all measures available to our government to ensure that anyone responsible for this attempted attack is brought to justice.”

Abdulmutallab, who had a valid U.S. visa, was in a terrorism database but not on a no-fly list.

Rep. Adam Smith, DWash., said there are still questions about the suspect’s connections to al-Qaida and Yemen.

Still, Smith noted that incendiary materials used by Abdulmutallab suggest he may have had more formal instruction and aid than a self-starter moved to action by militant al-Qaida ideology. Smith is chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and has been briefed on the investigation.

U.S. intelligence officials say their investigation is pointing in that direction, but they are still running down his claims. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.

The suspect came to the attention of intelligence officials in November when his father went to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to express concerns about his son, U.S. authorities told The Associated Press.

The father did not have any specific information that would put his son on the “no-fly list” or on the list for additional security checks at the airport, one government official.

Nor was the information sufficient to revoke his visa to visit the United States. His visa had been granted June 2008 and was valid through June 2010. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because neither was authorized to speak to the media.

In Nigeria, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the man’s father, told the AP: “I believe he might have been to Yemen, but we are investigating to determine that.”

The father was chairman of First Bank of Nigeria from 1999 through this month. The banker said his son is a former university student in London but had left Britain to travel abroad.

Abdulmutallab appeared on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database maintained by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said a U.S. official who received a briefing.

The database, which contains some 550,000 names, includes people with known or suspected ties to a terrorist organization. Inclusion on the list, however, would not prohibit a person from boarding a U.S.-bound airplane.

An official briefed on the attack said the U.S. has known for at least two years that the suspect in the attack could have terrorist ties. The official told the AP that the suspect has been on the list that includes people with known or suspected contact or ties to a terrorist or terrorist organization. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Bruce Hoffman, who studies terrorism at Georgetown University, said it was at least the 10th plot or attempt at “jihadi violence aimed at the United States” in 2009, a number he said is at least triple the average for recent years.

Passengers transferring from foreign flights at the Amsterdam airport are required to be screened by security there before taking off for another flight, an airport spokesman said Saturday. She could not confirm the details in Abdulmutallab’s case but said he was presumably subject to screening before he boarded the plane for the United States.

Investigators planned to interview all the passengers on the suspect’s flights and to review any security-camera video footage of him, a law enforcement official said.

London’s Metropolitan Police also were working with U.S. officials, said a spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

A search was conducted Saturday at an apartment building in a posh West London neighborhood where the suspect is said to have lived.

In the wake of the terrorism attempt, the Department of Homeland Security said travelers to the U.S. should expect additional screening and longer check-in times. Passengers aboard planes entering the U.S. will be required to remain seated in the final hour of flights, and won’t be allowed to access their carry-on baggage or have personal items on their laps, Air Canada said in a statement on its Web site, citing rules imposed by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

Information for this article was contributed by Corey Williams, Larry Margasak, Eileen Sullivan, Pam Hess, Matthew Lee and Devlin Barrett of The Associated Press; by Scott Shane, Eric Lipton, Eric Schmitt, Sarah Lyall, Micheline Maynard, Nick Bunkley and Matthew L. Wald of The New York Times; and by Nicholas Johnston, Martin Z. Braun, Jeff Bliss, Jonathan D. Salant, Sean B. Pasternak, Vincent Nwanma, Ed Dufner, Anthony Palazzo, Shani Raja, Rachel Graham, Martijn van der Starre and James G. Neuger of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/27/2009

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