Saturday, December 26, 2009

Northwest Airlines Attack: Security Failure of Staggering Proportions

From the Telegraph UK, "Analysis: Detroit Terror Attack is a Major Intelligence and Security Failure":

The fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to trigger his home-made incendiary device on board a US airliner represents an intelligence and security failure of staggering proportions.

Tough questions need to be asked of not just the US security agencies – such as the CIA and the FBI – but also of Britain's MI6, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorist unit.

How can a Muslim student, whose name appears on a US law enforcement database, be granted a visa to travel to America, allegedly acquire an explosive device from Yemen, a country awash with al-Qaeda terrorists, and avoid detection from the world's most sophisticated spy agencies?

Every intelligence agency across the world is fully aware that the targets of choice for al-Qaeda and its numerous affiliates and sympathisers are airliners – preferably those flying to the US. Yet Abdulmutallab seems to have avoided detection in both Nigeria and Holland when he passed through the various security checks at Lagos and Schiphol airports respectively.

Embarrassingly for the Washington, Lagos airport had recently been given the "all clear" by the US's Transportation Security Administration, an agency established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks which was supposed to improve the security on American airliners.

Attacking airlines is not exactly new territory for al-Qaeda. After 9/11, Richard Reid, a British Muslim convert, tried to blow up a transatlantic airliner by detonating explosives hidden in his shoes. More recently, Britain was the base for the so-called liquid bomb plot when a group of British Islamists plotted to destroy up to 10 US bound airliners in a series of attacks designed to kill thousands.

As 9/11 showed, for a relatively cheap outlay- the cost of the operation was estimated at round £300,000 – the impact of an airline attack can be global: the desired conclusion for every al-Qaeda mission.

Yet Abdulmutallab, a 23-year Nigerian, who US officials said studied mechanical engineering at University College in London, came frighteningly close to committing a terrorist atrocity undetected.
If you missed it, check out Air Canada's "travel advisory."

Also, at the New York Times, "
New Restrictions Are Imposed on Air Passengers": "The restrictions will again change the routine of air travel, which has undergone an upheaval since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in September 2001 and three attempts at air terrorism since then."

There will be more attempts in the future. But Democrats will continue to pooh-pooh the threats, and radicals like Spencer Ackerman and Matthew Yglesias will laugh at what a "joke" al Qaeda is, while calling for a "law enforcement" approach that's careful not to inflame tender Muslim sensibilities, insh'allah.

5 comments:

  1. I'll give you two words:

    POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

    THIS was another attack to be perpetrated on AMERICAN soil.

    It was to RESULT in the annihilation of a civilian aircraft and the annihilation of the area to which it potentially impacted.

    ALREADY the Defeatist Leftists are making their excuses on my blog: it's AMERICA's fault; it wasn't HIS fault; it was just a few FIREworks.

    My GOD. Have we learned NOTHING in this country??

    BZ

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  2. Clearly you've been all over this. Great for you. As much information as possible needs to be disseminated. I've not yet had the time to make multiple postings and comments.

    Please. Continue to make this information public.

    BZ

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  3. Obamabots suck donkey balls over this incident.

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  4. According to the "news crawl" on Fox this morning, Mr Abdulmutallab held a multi-entry visa, which allowed him to enter and leave the United States at will. And that visa was issued "a year ago," according to the news crawl, which would have meant during the Bush Administration.

    There is no right for any non-citizen to enter the United States; once Mr Abdulmutallab's name appeared on one watch list, it should have immediately been put on the no-entry list as well, and cross-referenced with outstanding visae. Why don't we do this?

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  5. As I noted elsewhere, I am guessing the security people were too busy pulling teenage girls out of the line and feeling them up to bather checking the passenger lists with the watch lists.

    This Islamic goon should have been yanked off the plane in Amsterdam and rudely strip-searched, X-rayed and interrogated.

    If these morons can't stop a guy they know about (his father had reportedly called and warned them about this puke months before) from boarding a plane wearing explosive underwear, how in the hell are they going to stop an unknown Islamic goon from boarding a plane with dynamite or C-4 crammed up their ass?

    -Dave

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