Fears that al-Qaeda is planning a wave of suicide attacks with syringe bombs have been heightened after it emerged that a Somali man tried to board an aircraft last month carrying the same type of device as that used by the Detroit bomber.

Police in Somalia said the terrorist was caught “red handed” in Mogadishu trying to take powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe onto a commercial airliner bound for Dubai. The suspect had 1kg of chemical powder – more than 12 times as much as the Detroit bomber – though the exact composition of the chemicals is not yet known.  Read more... (561 words, 1 image, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

Instead of body scanners and ethnic profiling we need patience and resilience to tackle terrorism

Not long after the attacks of 11 September 2001, I went to hear the Arab-American stand-up comedian Ahmed Ahmed riff on the perils of airport security. “All you white people have it easy,” he joked with the crowd. “You guys get to the airport like an hour, two hours before your flight. It takes me a month and a half.”  Read more... (1084 words, 1 image, estimated 4:20 mins reading time)

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) — Terror suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab met with radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, a top government official said Thursday.

The meeting took place in Shabwa, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of the capital, Sanaa, according to Yemen’s Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Rashad Al-Alemi.

No other details about the encounter were immediately available.

U.S. intelligence officials have been evaluating whether al-Awlaki played a role in the botched attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet en route from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan on Christmas Day. The attempt to ignite explosives hidden in AbdulMutallab’s underwear failed to bring down the plane.  Read more... (413 words, 1 image, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

First Published ecember 31, 2009 11:21 a.m. EST

CNN) — A man described as “one of al Qaeda‘s most dangerous members” was arrested in Yemen, the Yemeni military, an embassy official and state-run news agency Saba said.

Mohammed Abdu Saleh al-Haudali, 35, is “one of the most dangerous terrorists wanted by the security forces,” according to a Yemeni military Web site, citing a security source.

Al-Haudali was arrested Wednesday in the village of Deer Jaber in the Bajel district, northeast of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, said Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemen Embassy in Washington.  Read more... (359 words, 1 image, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) — Yemen’s foreign minister says his government has not sufficiently focused on al Qaeda because it has turned its attention to insurgencies rocking the northern and southern regions there.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview Wednesday that “our fault was that we spared al Qaeda” because of other conflicts — fighting Houthi rebels in the north and secessionists in the south.

He spoke to Amanpour from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

Al-Qirbi also said Yemen isn’t accepting direct U.S. intervention, despite reports that the United States made military strikes against Yemeni targets late last year, and he said his country’s forces can conduct military action against al Qaeda.  Read more... (986 words, 1 image, estimated 3:57 mins reading time)

Editor’s note: Robert S. Leiken in the director of National Security and Immigration Programs at The Nixon Center and writes for The National Interest. He is the author of the forthcoming “Europe’s Angry Muslims: The Revolt of the Second Generation” (Oxford University Press).

(CNN) — In assessing blame for the Christmas Day terror scare, we point fingers at Yemen, at the Amsterdam airport, even at corruption in African airports. But no one mentions where the would-be suicide bomber was radicalized: London, the capital of the ally we take for granted.  Read more... (932 words, 1 image, estimated 3:44 mins reading time)

Ever since 9/11, the west has been haunted by the spectre of a repeat. On Christmas Day, the date surely not chosen at random, that second attack very nearly succeeded. Only the combination of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s fumbling and the bravery of the passengers and crew of Northwest 253 foiled the attempt to bring down the Airbus A330 and its 278 passengers on the descent into Detroit. If the bomber had succeeded, he would have achieved the sum of all post-9/11 fears. The consequences would have been prodigious. Those on board NW253 are not the only ones who have had a very narrow escape indeed.  Read more... (648 words, 1 image, estimated 2:36 mins reading time)

Though President Obama continues his Hawaiian vacation, White House officials are busy painting a picture of a president who is constantly engaged in dealing with the fall out from the failed terrorist attack aboard NW flight 253 on Christmas Day, careful to show Obama is balancing his leisure activities with appropriate attention to his job. A senior White House official says Obama continues to receive the preliminary results from the terrorism reviews he ordered on Sunday. The deadline was today.  Read more... (522 words, 1 image, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

Mark Hosenball
President Barack Obama received a high-level briefing only three days before Christmas about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the US, Newsweek has learned. The briefing was centered on a written report, produced by US intelligence agencies, entitled “Key Homeland Threats”, a senior US official said.

The senior Administration official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that nowhere in this document was there any mention of Yemen, whose Al-Qaeda affiliate is now believed to have been behind the unsuccessful Christmas Day attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bring down a transatlantic airliner with a bomb hidden in his underpants. However, the official declined to disclose any other information about the substance of the briefing, including what kind of specific warnings, if any, the President was given about possibly holiday attacks and whether Yemen came up during oral discussions.  Read more... (826 words, 1 image, estimated 3:18 mins reading time)

HONOLULU — President Barack Obama laid blame Saturday on an al-Qaida affiliate for a Christmas Day terrorist attack that has prompted a top-to-bottom review of how the nation’s intelligence agencies failed to prevent the botched bombing aboard a Detroit-bound airliner.

In his most direct public language to date, the president described the path through Yemen of 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to destroy Northwest Flight 253. The president also emphasized that the United States would continue its partnerships with friendly countries – citing Yemen, in particular – to fight terrorists and extremist groups around the globe.  Read more... (583 words, 1 image, estimated 2:20 mins reading time)