Witnesses To Terrorist Attack Speak Out

The Toledo Blade seems to have about the most comprehensive account of the failed terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it prepared to land in Detroit yesterday. Several passengers are said to have mobbed 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab when the possibly failed detonation occurred. Understandably, the initial information flow around the attack seems to have been downplayed, according to passengers. Best to say less before they know more facts.

One put him in a choke hold. It's unclear if he had enough explosives to actually bring down the plane. Given the back story as I've read around, I'm wondering if this wasn't a probing attack to test a new detonation device with more skilled and experienced Al Qaeda operatives looking to capitalize somehow down the line.

Speaking to CNN, Mr. King said Mr. Mutallab "did appear in a database as far as having a terrorist connection."

"My understanding is … that he does have al-Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search of intelligence databases, Mr. King said.

Mr. Mutallab was not on a "no-fly" list, but his name was in a database indicating "a significant terrorist connection," Mr. King said.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Wall Street Journal said Mr. Mutallab told investigators al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen had given him the device and instructions on how to detonate it.

Comments

[KingShamus]

He had significant terrorist connections, but not on a no-fly list? What's an al-Qaeda thug gotta do to get some Homeland Security love around here?

[Sissy Willis]

KingShamus: Love it!

I just clicked over to your blog, and there was your critique of one of my all-time fave junk-science quotations, Stephen Schneider's timeless 1989 credo "we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we may have…each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest."

For fun I googled my own online spoutings re Schneider and was delighted to find this from commenter Mark Penfold at Pharyngula http://bit.ly/8H3d6m last year :

"I just looked at Sissy Willis's blog. The person (I am still not clear what sex/gender the person is) does not seem to be sane.

"I also doubt they are calling themselves Sissy with any kind of ironic intent. Which also suggests their grasp of English is as bad as their understanding of climate change, or since they seem to consider the current Pope to be some kind of hero, their grasp of morality."

Then this ad feminam attack from Nerd of Redhead:

"Sissy, who am I going to believe, scientists working in the field, or you? The scientists are required to be honest in their professional endeavors, as lying will get them shunned. Now, what is your specialty, degrees, areas, and years of working in what field to back up what you are trying to claim?"

As I said in Pharyngula's comments in reply then:

"I am a seeker of wisdom and truth. No scientific degrees whatever. They do not give one license to jump on bandwagons of politically correct gobbledygook. Darwin rules, and Al Gore is a conman."

A year later, the proof of the pudding is Climategate.

[Anon]

What is the point of all the 'third degree' nonsense, needlessly stupid rules and TSA security screenings for millions upon millions of normal travels IF TSA STILL CAN"T STOP SOMEONE FROM GETTING ON A PLANE WITH A FREAKING BOMB!!!!!!!!!!!

What is the point of confiscating granny's shampoo bottle when some guy with known terrorist connections is able to get on an an airplane with a bomb???????????????

[Orwell's Cousin]

Anon - Get with it, the "security" is not aimed at them. It is aimed at you.

[Anon]

LOL, I actually think the "security" is totally random, apparently after almost a decade TSA and Homeland Security still have absolutely NO IDEA how to differentiate between a potential terrorist and a regular traveler and it appears they don't even try.

I will say I have seen muslims singled out for a lot of extra screening, again, even when it didn't make sense like a mother traveling with three children under the age of 7, she's not going to blow up her own kids, so why hassle her?

I'm also surprised this guy got anything past Amsterdam, having just been there, I found their security to be MUCH tighter and more intelligent than what I see in the US which is again just random S**t with no rhyme or reason.

[Sissy Willis]

Dan: Sorry for taking up so much space off topic. Always all about me. But it's all related, I think.:)

[Elmo]

This is the new reality. Mad Mo's Merry Band has only just started singing.

[NikFromNYC]

T'is not the devil makes flying machines go, but despoiled strippers. We seek virgin strippers by blowing planes up. We kill people to get virgin sex in heaven. Really. That's what drives us. Virginity. It sounds odd to YOU, but we take it very seriously, at the Islamic Nut Company.

[Fen]

My fav quotes re this are all the experts claiming what great security screening there was... that let explosives pass through.

[SDN]

All of the security screening we go through is kabuki, designed to make you think something is being done.

A real improvement in security would be to screen all airport employees and not allow the Muslims access to aircraft.

[someguy]

How did Hillary Clinton's State Department issue a travel VISA to a known Muslim terrorist on the watch list using his real name?

For Christmas Day travel?

[Anon]

Unless the Obama Administration has changed the rules on TSA security procedures then there is no reason to think that anything would have been different under Bush.

TSA sucks and is incompetent, it sucked and was incompetent under Bush and it continues to suck and be incompetent under Obama.

TSA is going to ruin the holidays for millions of Americans by going crazy with screenings, and you can bet on it, that the next terrorist with a bomb is going to somehow escape scrunity...like they always do.

[Dan Riehl]

A rich kid and his Father warned the US? Another poor oppressed Muslim, no doubt.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/12/26/2009-12-26_father_of_umar_farouk_abdul_mutallab_nigerian_terror_suspect_in_flight_253_attac.html

[mark l.]

"How did Hillary Clinton's State Department issue a travel VISA to a known Muslim terrorist on the watch list using his real name?

For Christmas Day travel?"

ouch.
a sawbuck says the messiah is never asked this question by a fawning press.

in six months, the libs will be heralding the failed attempt as sign of how responsible our security has become. it isn't like they weren't reinventing the millenium plot storyline within two years.

[Jeffersonian]

The day of the hijacker is over forever. Anyone even remotely suspected of presenting a threat of such or any other mortal action on a plane had better succeed in the first five seconds of his attack, or he's toast. Passengers are radicalized, even if our government is insouciant.

[Meremortal]

We may have to put the other passengers on trial. The bomb didn't work, so obviously there was no threat; and yet they jumped to a conclusion.

*spit*

[Michael Lonie]

"I will say I have seen muslims singled out for a lot of extra screening, again, even when it didn't make sense like a mother traveling with three children under the age of 7, she's not going to blow up her own kids, so why hassle her?"

Don't Be so sure, Anon. The suicide bomber who killed Benazir Bhutto apparently used his one-year-led child, held in his arms, as cover to get up close to her. The Palestinian Arab "Umm Nidal" has boasted about her three suicide bomber sones, and encouraged the remaining three to follow them. The radicalized jihadist's mindset is not like a Westerner's.

[Steve]

mother traveling with three children under the age of 7, she's not going to blow up her own kids, so why hassle her?

Why wouldn't she? They really don't think the way we do. The mother might see it as the greatest gift that she could give her children is making them martyrs for Islam.

Question? Do kids who die for Jihad still get 72 virgins.

Well, I guess since Mohammed himself bedded a 9 year old.

This is indeed one SICK religion.

THIS IS WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT SACRIFICING FAMILY FOR ISLAM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1vMExBfdVg