US enhances airline security
Source: Agencies |
December 28, 2009, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE United States government tightened airline security as it searches for answers to how a Nigerian man eluded extensive systems intended to prevent attacks such as his botched Christmas Day effort to blow up a Northwest flight from overseas.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was charged on Saturday with trying to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253, a Delta-owned Airbus 330, as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam with almost 300 people on board.
Airports worldwide tightened security a day after the passenger tried to detonate a device that contained a high explosive.
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says there is no indication that the man is part of a larger terrorist plot. Napolitano refused to say whether Abdulmutallab has a connection to al-Qaida, citing the ongoing criminal investigation.
She confirmed that there was no air marshal on the plane with Abdulmutallab. They are not on every flight. Napolitano says that despite Abdulmutallab's success at getting dangerous chemicals on board the plane, commercial flying is safe.
She says the US is reviewing what security measures were used in Amsterdam, where he boarded the flight.
The investigation stretched to London, where officers from the Metropolitan Police, the force involved in most of the major terrorism investigations in Britain, cordoned off the street outside a white stone apartment block in a well-to-do area of central London on Saturday.
A police spokeswoman said the force was carrying out searches in connection with the incident in Detroit.
University College London said Abdulmutallab was enrolled at the school from September 2005 to June 2008.
In Nigeria, the father of Abdulmutallab said his son had been a student in London, but had left the city to travel.
US authorities said that in November, his father, a banking official in Nigeria, went to the US embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss his concerns about his son's religious beliefs.
One government official said 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.
Abdulmutallab appeared on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database maintained by the US National Counterterrorism Center, said a US official who received a briefing and spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to the affidavit filed in US District Court in Detroit, a preliminary analysis of the device showed it contained PETN, a high explosive also known as pentaerythritol. This was the same material convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was charged on Saturday with trying to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253, a Delta-owned Airbus 330, as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam with almost 300 people on board.
Airports worldwide tightened security a day after the passenger tried to detonate a device that contained a high explosive.
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says there is no indication that the man is part of a larger terrorist plot. Napolitano refused to say whether Abdulmutallab has a connection to al-Qaida, citing the ongoing criminal investigation.
She confirmed that there was no air marshal on the plane with Abdulmutallab. They are not on every flight. Napolitano says that despite Abdulmutallab's success at getting dangerous chemicals on board the plane, commercial flying is safe.
She says the US is reviewing what security measures were used in Amsterdam, where he boarded the flight.
The investigation stretched to London, where officers from the Metropolitan Police, the force involved in most of the major terrorism investigations in Britain, cordoned off the street outside a white stone apartment block in a well-to-do area of central London on Saturday.
A police spokeswoman said the force was carrying out searches in connection with the incident in Detroit.
University College London said Abdulmutallab was enrolled at the school from September 2005 to June 2008.
In Nigeria, the father of Abdulmutallab said his son had been a student in London, but had left the city to travel.
US authorities said that in November, his father, a banking official in Nigeria, went to the US embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss his concerns about his son's religious beliefs.
One government official said 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.
Abdulmutallab appeared on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database maintained by the US National Counterterrorism Center, said a US official who received a briefing and spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to the affidavit filed in US District Court in Detroit, a preliminary analysis of the device showed it contained PETN, a high explosive also known as pentaerythritol. This was the same material convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes.
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