Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab Livens Up Slow News Day With Detroit Firecracker
HUGE news that Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a passenger aboard Delta Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, tried to blow up the plane.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab?! Yep. Him and all. And Abdul Mudallad? Did you say Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab? Yes. Was that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? Yep.
As Sky News says:
Passenger ‘Tries To Blow Up’ US Plane
A bomb? The Daily Telegraph says:
Passenger sets off fireworks on Airbus
Fireworks? Sky says:
US source say the 23-year-old Nigerian, an engineering student at a university in London, ignited a “powdery substance”, a mix of powder and liquid.
A wet firework? A big rocket Kaboom! Reuters calls it:
Obama monitoring Delta flight firecracker situation
The Sun agrees on firecrackers:
The man set off a firecracker on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, an Airbus 330 carrying 278 passengers.
Canada.com has more facts:
A Montreal woman said she feared for her life after hearing several bangs that sounded like gun shots, and seeing a man on fire while her plane was landing in Detroit Friday.
So no bomb?
“The plane was about to land, and the landing gear wasn’t down yet, that’s when this guy set himself on fire,” she said. “I thought we were all gone. Thank God, somehow the plane landed.”
And what about the Detroit connection? Why would anyone bother to attack Detroit, the US failed city?
* Terrorist Attack Detroit
The facts are coming in thick and fast. What do we know about the man. Sky News says he’s on a list.
The man:
He suffered third-degree burns. He is said to have claimed links to al Qaeda
Obama:
Representative Peter King, who sits on the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, calls the device “fairly sophisticated”. President Obama, experiencing global warming first hand in Hawaii, is “actively monitoring” the situation. He “instructed that all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel,” says White House spokesman Bill Burton.
Man sets off firecracker on airplane to America’s lost city and Obama is watching the news on the telly. More to follow…
Posted: 26th, December 2009 | In: News Comments (6) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
December 27th, 2009 at 9:53 am
This is the thing Cheryl ,Bush and Blair took the ‘moral’ stance when Baghdad was bombed and many other places too, and from their own point of view the terrorists are doing the same thing. After all it just depends what side you are on to see the ‘freedom fighter’ or the ‘terrorist’.
However I can understand many attacks have been thwarted, but its best not to bathe them in publicity, and the only unthwarted ones are the ones that end in tragedy.
We are well used over here to be vigilent, its a way of life now
December 27th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Eggman, I think our Government is prepared for further terrorist attacks to come in many forms. Our Government buildings in DC are almost fortress like now. The train station in DC, and I’m sure in other cities, is crawling with security guards and ID icompared to name on ticket is now carefully checked when boarding the trains. Subway system here is now crawling with security guards. I myself haven’t ridden the subway since 9/11. My thoughts are that is an ‘easy hit’ to take out thousands of people with a few well placed fire bombs during rush hour. They are a sick lot of bloody bastards and one can’t afford to put anything past them .
Here is an article I received today from NPR. You’ll note in reading the story what we have been dealing with over here in 2009 and the real concerns for what 2010 may bring.
The UK is not sitting safe either.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121927036&sc=nl&cc=nh-20091226
December 27th, 2009 at 4:54 am
It’s a tricky one for the security services. If they put someone on a “no fly” list, are they alerting them to the fact that they’re known about? The frightening thing is that it’s impossible to stop terrorist acts by their very nature. They’re not predictable and could happen at any time. Our Security Services have had a few successes in recent years and well done them, but a lot of measures end up as being a reaction to a “new” type of threat such as the one here. I’ve always wondered why terrorists seem to go to all the trouble of attacking planes, etc, which have high security measures and which, let’s face it, are not an everyday thing for most people, when there are so many more softer targets everywhere. The IRA knew this only too well.
December 26th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
June, what is discouraging, turns out our intelligence has been watching him for two years and placed him on the ‘suspect’ list but didn’t restrict his flying. I do not think for a second our respective countries are safe, any way you cut it, from other terrorist attacks. Too many terrorist cells are being found over here and you have them over there, also. I don’t know just how much our respective Intelligence agencies exchange information via lists of names of those suspected or known of having terrorist links with each other or even with other ‘friendly’ countries. We have to get our act together and do something about this via exchanging information and lists of names of who can’t fly into our respective countries because of terrorist links or suspected links. He flew out of Nigeria and then transferred in Amsterdam (a friendly) then onto here. If we would all work together we could literally block these characters every step of the way so they can’t reach our shores.
When George and Tony lied and connived to get us into Iraq they opened Pandora’s Box! How many years have we been looking for Bin Laden? Not a hair of his has been seen, has it! I suspect he is no longer alive. He had been in poor health and years have passed …
Whatever, I still think we should all revolt and throw our government officials out and run our countries outselves. We have common sense while they play politics!
December 26th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Shame he didn’t toast himself……
We get a lot of international students at our universities Cheryl, they pay the full fees, which helps fund home grown students
December 26th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
It wasn’t a firecracker as first reported but some type of home made bomb. Sounds as if he he didn’t make the bomb properly and when he set it off he only burnt himself. Interesting he was on a list of suspected terrorists but not on the no fly list over here.
The US and the UK are taking this seriously as they should. Noted he is going to a Unversity in the UK!
Twenty-one years ago this month on December 21st, a US plane enroute from Europe was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. Late last summer and fall massive news coverage took place over that bombing regarding the terrorist being released by Scotland and sent back to his country to die. I wonder if that massive coverage gave him the brainstorm to do his bombing of a US airline returning from Europe in December. Many times massive coverage of a crime brings on copycat like crimes. Whatever, if he gets charged over here for a terrorist act he won’t be going back to his country.