Underwear bomber's explosives failed to detonate because he had worn them for three weeks | Daily Mail Online comments The notorious underwear bomber who tried to bring down a jumbo jet on Christmas Day had a dirty little secret - he'd been wearing the explosive skivvies for weeks. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wore them for three weeks to be exact, and it may have been the reason why he was unsuccessful in his 2009 terrorist plans aboard a Detroit-bound airliner. The new details were revealed by two FBI agents who played a role in securing a confession from Abdulmutallab, shortly after the bungled plot. Scroll down for video Bomber shorts: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wore this underwear outfitted with explosives for three weeks before the failed bomb attempt on Christmas Day 2009 Notorious: Abdulmutallab was focused on his mission to crash the plane over Detroit, because it was 'God's call' Agent Ted Peissig told WXYZ-TV : 'So basically for three weeks he wore this garment, these underwear with this device in it.

‘We think ultimately that is probably what caused the disruption in the sequence of events in the explosion.' Terror strike: Abdulmutallab, pictured in his 2009 mugshot, was sentenced to three life terms after pleading guilty Peissig, along with fellow agent Mike Connelly, told the network that Abdulmutallab wore the explosives-rigged underwear for three weeks in an effort to get accustomed to it, only taking it off when he showered. Connelly added that Abdulmutallab was focused on his mission to crash the plane, because it was 'God's call.' The agents admitted that Abdulmutallab did not look like a terrorist, but he spoke freely about how he was working for al-Qaeda and that had acted alone. The explosives failed to fully detonate aboard the flight, which was carrying nearly 300 people, but caused a brief fire that badly burned his groin. Passengers pounced on Abdulmutallab and forced him to the front of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 where he was held until the plane landed minutes later. Abdulmutallab talked freely to the FBI about his desire to commit martyrdom for his Islamic faith.

In 2009, months before the attack, he said he travelled to Yemen to see Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and one of the best-known al-Qaeda figures. He told investigators that his mission was approved after a three-day visit with his mentor. RELATED ARTICLES Islamic Radicalization: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab Islamic Radicalization: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab World A young man checks in at the airport in Nigeria with a ticket to America bought with cash, and only carry-on luggage. More than a month before, his father, a wealthy banker, has visited the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, worried that his son has gone missing and may be hanging around with Yemeni-based extremists. The National Security Agency has picked up intelligence that Al Qaeda in Yemen is planning to use an unnamed Nigerian for a terror attack on the United States. The man has been denied a visa to enter Britain, but he has a valid multiple-entry visa for the United States. In the movie version, lights would be flashing on computer screens in a darkened room in a nondescript building in the suburbs of northern Virginia, and intelligence officials would be on the phone asking urgent questions about the young man.

In real life, nothing of the sort happened. There is, indeed, a plain, unmarked building outside of Washington where analysts of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) sift through intelligence, looking for threatening signs and patterns. Their operations room even looks like something out of the movies. It was designed with help from the Walt Disney Co., according to intelligence officials involved with the planning. But when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas morning with a bomb sewn into his underpants, the U.S. government did nothing to stop him. Possibly the worst terrorist strike against the U.S. since 9/11 was averted only by luck and the bravery of other passengers and the airplane's crew. Officials in the intelligence community are quick to point out that the facts always look clearer in hindsight, and that they are overwhelmed with false leads and sheer noise every hour of every day. But the breakdown in the system may be worse than has been publicly acknowledged. In the months before the Christmas attack, there were many warning signs coming out of Yemen.

In early October, Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen, posted a provocative message on his English-language Web site: "COULD YEMEN BE THE NEXT SURPRISE OF THE SEASON?" Al-Awlaki seemed to hint at an upcoming attack that would make Yemen "the single most important front of jihad in the world." Al-Awlaki, who once had contacts with two of the 9/11 hijackers, is the same imam who had been exchanging e-mails with the U.S. Army psychiatrist who later killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. He is a now a central figure in the investigation into the Detroit attack: prior to the Christmas incident, the National Security Agency had intercepted communications between a phone used by al-Awlaki and Abdulmutallab, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official tells NEWSWEEK. The official says al-Awlaki may also have been involved in other intercepted communications indicating that Al Qaeda was planning to use an unidentified "Nigerian" in an attack over the holiday season.

Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week The same month that al-Awlaki was predicting a "surprise," John Brennan, the president's chief counterterrorism adviser, received an alarming briefing at the White House from Muhammad bin Nayef, Brennan's Saudi counterpart. Nayef had just survived an assassination attempt by a Qaeda operative using a novel method: the operative had flown in from the Saudi-Yemeni border region with a bomb hidden in his underwear. The Saudi was concerned because he "didn't think [U.S. officials] were paying enough attention" to the growing threat from Al Qaeda in Yemen, said a former U.S. intelligence official familiar with the briefing. (The official, like others quoted in this article, did not want to be named talking about sensitive information.) Intelligence experts now strongly suspect that Nayef's attacker and Abdulmutallab had the same bomb maker in Yemen. Altogether, portents of trouble coming from Yemen seem to have been gathering in the months and days before Christmas. Yet on Dec. 22, at a White House Situation Room briefing, a document presented to the president titled "Key Homeland Threats" did not mention Yemen, according to a senior administration official.

He would not say whether Yemen was discussed at the briefing. Ordinary Americans—familiar with Google, Twitter, and search engines that seem to have no trouble learning all about their personal lives—are bound to wonder why the federal government, years and many billions of dollars after 9/11, couldn't connect some pretty big dots. "A systemic failure has occurred," said President Obama, getting ahead of the pack. He promised to hold officials "accountable." Congress will investigate, and lawmakers—possibly the same ones who in the past have complained about undue travel restrictions and invasions of privacy—will demand a better system. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab grew up in luxury, in the walled courtyard of his family home in Nairobi, and when he went to college, he lived not in a dorm but in an apartment his parents maintained in a posh London neighborhood. But as the 16th and youngest child of his father's two wives, he may not have gotten much parental attention. He was sent off to a British-style boarding school for the children of diplomats and rich West African businessmen, where Islamic boys were supposed to sing Christmas carols.

Like most well-to-do teens, he worried about college admissions, fretting over a low score on his SAT in an Internet chat room. He also worried about girls. "Lowering his gaze" like a proper Islamic boy when a girl passed by didn't seem to help, nor did fasting, he complained. By the winter of his senior year he was in a deep funk. "I have no one to speak too [sic]," wrote "Farouk1986" on the popular "Islamic Forum" at Gawaher.com. "No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And I think loneliness leads me to other problems." More pious than most boys, he was called "Alfa," local coinage for an Islamic scholar, and also, more cruelly, "Pope." Graduating from high school in 2005, he was cheered by a trip to Sana, the capital of Yemen, to take a course in Arabic. "It's just great," he gushed about the city's shopping and local cuisine (though he was glad to find Pizza Hut and KFC).

At Britain's University College London, he does not appear to have studied very hard (he was getting a degree in mechanical engineering), but he became head of the college's Islamic Society. He organized a war-on-terror week, with various Islamists and British left-wing speakers invited to denounce American oppression and human-rights violations in the Middle East. But such rhetoric was hardly unusual on British campuses. On a Web site, Abdulmutallab justified killing in the name of jihad, and ranted against corrupt Saudi princes. Still, he did not appear to have been a fiery radical in person. His classmates described him as quiet, humble—"if he walked into a room, you wouldn't know he was there," said Qasim Rafiq, his successor as head of the Islamic Society, in an interview with The New York Times. Of course, the ability to move about unnoticed is a prime characteristic of a good spy. It is not known how or when he was recruited by Al Qaeda. Terrorist recruiters peruse Web sites, and Abdulmutallab's pro-jihad sentiments, his engineering studies, his familiarity with the West, and—perhaps most of all—his ability to travel to America did not go unnoticed in the online netherworld.

He went to an Islamic religious gathering in Houston on a U.S. visa in 2008, spent some time in Dubai, and—fatefully—enrolled in language school in Yemen in August 2009. Yemen had been a jihadist hotbed before 9/11—terrorists tried to blow up the USS Cole, an American Navy destroyer, in October 2000. And it is fast becoming a base of operations for a Qaeda offshoot with big ambitions. In 2007 a Guantánamo detainee named Said al-Shihri was released and sent to Saudi Arabia, where he went through an "art-therapy rehabilitation" program to free himself from extremism. The cure did not take—he came straight to Yemen and joined up with some former lieutenants of Osama bin Laden to create Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It was this group that sent the suicide bomber to kill Nayef, the Saudi intelligence official. The bomber stumbled on his way in and blew himself up; Nayef was slightly wounded.

In October 2009, AQAP published an article in its online magazine invoking the martyrdom of "Abu al-Kheir"—Nayef's would-be assassin. Abdulmutallab's father, a prominent retired banker and former Nigerian finance minister, appeared at the U.S. Embassy in the city of Abuja on Nov. 19 to tell American officials that his son had vanished. He worried that the young man had been spending time with extremists from Yemen, but he said nothing about terrorism, according to two U.S. counterterrorism officials. He wanted the Americans to help him get his son back. These sorts of "walk-ins" are far from unusual in American embassies around the world; usually, it's a wife or husband who wants help tracking down a missing spouse. The New York Times interviewed a cousin of Abdulmutallab who said the father had described his son as a "security threat," after examining text messages from his son in Yemen. Senior embassy officials, including a top CIA officer, duly held a meeting the next day and sent a report back to Washington.

The report was routinely entered in a vast database known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a collection of more than half a million names, kept by the NCTC. But the NCTC analysts did not do much, if anything, with the information. They did not check to see if Abdulmutallab had a valid American visa—a seemingly certain red flag. They did not check to see if he had a British visa. In fact, his application for a British visa had been denied under a policy that weeds out applications for entry visas to study in language schools. Last week the British somewhat defensively said the information was available, had the Americans asked, but that British authorities did not notify Washington because Abdulmutallab's visa application had been rejected to stop immigration fraud, not for national-security reasons. Collectively, the U.S. government had its head in the sand. The FBI had no representative at the meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, in the center of the country—the FBI maintains an attaché only in Lagos, on the southern coast. The CIA did not tell the FBI about Abdulmutallab.

Under the so-called Visa Viper program, the State Department received the report about the meeting with Abdulmutallab's father, but it did not revoke the son's visa. Rather, it made a note to closely scrutinize any future application to renew the visa. Likewise, the NCTC determined that there was no "reasonable suspicion" to conclude that Abdulmutallab was a terrorist, so he wasn't put on the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center watch list of some 400,000 names, or counted as one of 13,000 people who require extra screening before getting on a plane, or one of 4,000 names who are on the "no fly" list—banned from getting on a plane at all. It's all a matter of legal thresholds. For reasons of privacy and convenience, the airlines and civil-liberties groups have pressed the government not to be overexpansive in its definition of a security risk.

The NCTC was set up to make sure that the various American agencies and intelligence services better shared information in the wake of 9/11, which might have been averted if the CIA and FBI had been in better communication about the Qaeda hijackers entering the country. But for reasons still not adequately explained, no one seems to have noticed other red flags in the intelligence system. The intelligence community had already picked up the intercepts indicating that Al Qaeda was planning to use a Nigerian for an attack on America. Other intercepts suggested a terror attack out of Yemen at Christmas, though officials believed the likely target would be somewhere in the Middle East, not in the United States. Finally, there were the intercepts between Abdulmutallab and the phone (and possibly a computer) used by al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based cleric. Such contact would seem to cry out for attention—although an intelligence official said the intercepts did not indicate Abdulmutallab's full name. After the billions spent to beef up homeland security since 9/11, it's not unreasonable to expect the government would have the sort of search engines for its own internal databases that seem routine in the private sector.

A counterterrorism official said that such Google-type programs do exist—but added that they are expensive, are hard to use, and have not been widely implemented by intel agencies. A frustrating stumbling block: different agencies have different levels of secrecy, thwarting communication between them. Former officials were scathing in their judgments of the intelligence community's performance. "The system should have been lighting up like a Christmas tree," said Ali Soufan, a former senior FBI counterterrorism agent who spent years tracking Qaeda suspects in Yemen (and often battled with the CIA over information sharing). Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush's chief homeland-security adviser, put most of the blame on the analysts at the NCTC for not pushing—pinging the system—for more information on Abdulmutallab. "It was NCTC's responsibility to connect the dots, and ask for additional dots if they don't have enough," she said.

Instead, the original report about the visit of Abdulmutallab's father appears to have been dropped in a "dead-letter file." An intelligence official responded to the criticism: "While this is the season for second-guessing and finger-pointing, I have not seen anything to come from the meeting in Abuja that suddenly would have rocketed Abdulmutallab to the no-fly list. You had a young man who was becoming increasingly pious and was turning his back on his family's wealthy lifestyle. That alone makes him neither Saint Francis nor a dead-eyed killer. Every piece of data, of course, looks different when you know the answer, as everyone does now." The airlines and airport security do not appear to have been very vigilant. When Abdulmutallab checked in for his flight from Nigeria to Detroit via Amsterdam on Christmas Eve, he showed a ticket paid for with cash ($2,831) and checked no bags. Seem suspicious? No one raised any questions. In Amsterdam, the airport has begun installing full-body image scanners that might have detected the explosives sewn into Abdulmutallab's underwear.

But Dutch authorities told NEWSWEEK that the American government did not want U.S.-bound passengers to pass through the intrusive scanners, apparently for privacy reasons. As the Airbus 330 carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew members began its descent into Detroit on Christmas Day, witnesses say Abdulmutallab got up from his seat by the window in the economy section and went to the bathroom. He stayed there for 20 minutes. When he returned, he told his seatmate that his stomach had been bothering him. He put a blanket over his lap and tried to inject chemicals from a syringe into a packet containing three ounces of explosive powder that he had retrieved from his underpants. The bomb should have been powerful enough to blow a hole in the plane. But instead passengers heard a popping sound, like a firecracker, and saw flames. Passengers yelled, and some tried to get up and run to the back of the plane. One passenger seated in the same row, but on the far side of the plane, jumped up and scrambled across the seats to wrestle with the man. He shook the half-melted syringe from Abdulmutallab's hand and started ripping off his pants, looking for more explosives.

Flight attendants appeared and sprayed both men with fire extinguishers. The entire drama took less than a minute. "The whole plane was screaming," Jasper Schuringa, the Dutch filmmaker who tackled Abdulmutallab, recalled in an interview with CNN. "But the suspect, he didn't say a word." Abdulmutallab did not resist; he seemed limp, inert. Later, when a flight attendant asked him what had been in his pocket, he answered, "Explosive device." Though badly burned, Abdulmutallab was well enough to talk to the FBI. He's been charged with trying to blow up Flight 253 and a hearing has been set for Jan. 8. More recently, he has retained a lawyer, likely making his cooperation limited, at least for a time. The Feds will want to extract as much intelligence as possible and as quickly as possible. AQAP will want to try again.

Last week its Web site posted a statement praising Abdulmutallab as a hero who "penetrated all modern and sophisticated technology and devices and security barriers in airports of the world" and "reached his target." AQAP proudly proclaimed that "the mujahedeen brothers in the manufacturing department" had supplied the explosives, "though a technical error" led to the "incomplete detonation." The Obama administration's efforts to put a positive spin on the near miss were cringe-making. White House Communications Director Robert Gibbs and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano went on the Sunday shows to reassure the jittery public, but Napolitano got a little carried away, saying the "system has worked really very, very smoothly over the past several days." When the hooting began, she insisted that she was being quoted out of context—that she meant the system had worked after the bombing attempt. A senior administration official said that Obama was "extremely angry" when he learned how much information intelligence agencies had collected about Abdulmutallab before the bombing. "We're not talking about information that had just been developed in the 24 hours prior to Christmas," said the official.

"This was information that had been in the system for months." Obama was already irritated to learn of communications between al-Awlaki and Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, that the FBI had failed to act on—messages that are sure to provoke public outrage when they become public. The "forever war," as President Bush called it, goes on. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said: "Iraq was yesterday's war, Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war." Obama had already authorized a covert war in Yemen. When Yemeni jets bombed Qaeda targets on Dec. 17 and 24, the United States supplied intelligence, missiles, and military support. American spies and special forces are on the ground, assisting the Yemenis. They are looking, no doubt, for that "manufacturing department" before "the mujahedeen brothers" can make a martyr out of some other confused and lonely young man.

Timeline of Terror: Clues in Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's Past - ABC News ABC News Timeline of Terror: Clues in Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's Past By Russell Goldman Email In hindsight, there were clues that alleged would-be "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had become a dangerous person, and President Obama has said that it was "unacceptable" that those clues weren't spotted and acted upon. During Abdulmutallab's transformation from the privileged son of a wealthy Nigerian banker to an al Qaeda trainee being taught to kill, he left a series of red flags. Now American and international law enforcement officials are trying to determine how Abdulmutallab was able to come so close to causing more terror in the skies. Here is a look at the trail of clues Abdulmutallab left behind: 2005 to 2008: Abdulmutallab attends University College of London. From 2006 to 2007, the 23-year-old engineering student was president of the school's Islamic Society, when he invited controversial speakers to talk about jihad.

June 16, 2008: Abdulmutallab granted Visa to the U.S. Abdulmutallab is granted a two-year, multiple-entry visa to visit the U.S., which would expire on June 18, 2010. August 2008 Abdulmutallab travels to the U.S. from London on an 11 day trip to Houston. May 2009 The first alarm The U.K denies Abdulmutallab's application to renew his student visa because he applied to study "life coaching" at a non-existent college. August 2009 U.S. Visa Gives Him Entree to Terror Training He arrives in Yemen, which admits him because he has a valid U.S. visa in his passport. He stays with an al Qaeda leader for about a month while being trained. Nov. 11, 2009 First use of underwear bomb Somali man is arrested trying to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu carrying a syringe and explosives in his underwear – a homemade explosive device similar to the one Abdulmutallab was carrying on Christmas Day. Nov.

19, 2009 Clear warning Abdulmutallab's father, wealthy Nigerian banker Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, is alarmed by phone call from his son saying it would be their last contact and associates in Yemen would then destroy his phone. Mutullab feared his son was preparing for a suicide mission in Yemen and went to Nigerian officials who took the father to meet with a CIA officer at the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. Nov. 20, 2009 Alert falls short The embassy sent a cable to Washington with the information provided by Mutallab. The CIA sent a report to the National Counterterrorism Center. Abdulmutallab's name is added to the government's terror database, but it is not added to the Do Not Fly list. U.S. officials also did not share Abdulmutallab's name with Yemen intelligence officials. Dec. 7, 2009 A missed opportunityAbdulmutallab left Yemen three months after his visa had expired. Yemen officials tell the Associated Press he should not have been allowed on the plane because of his visa infraction. Dec.

16, 2009 A red flag is ignoredAbdulmutallab purchases his plane ticket at Accra Airport in Ghana with nearly $3,000 in cash. Buying expensive plane tickets in cash is one of the main alerts for possible terrorists. Dec. 25, 2009 The plot is put in motion Abdulmutallab flies from Nigeria to Amsterdam, where he boards Flight 253 bound for Detroit. He paid for his $2,831 ticket in cash and carried no luggage. The 80 grams of the high-explosive chemical PETN strapped inside the crotch of his underwear went undetected. Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up the airline as it approached the airport, but the detonator failed to work and instead, Abdulmutallab's pants caught on fire. He was quickly subdued by other passengers. Aftermath President Obama publicly addresses the incident for the first time on Monday as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility for the attack and threatened more such plots. On Tuesday, Obama acknowledges security failures in the case of Abdulmutallab, saying the intelligence community had information that could have and should have been pieced together.

Preliminary reports of the reviews Obama has ordered will be sent to the president Thursday. 0 Shares Nigerian underwear bomber gets life sentence - U.S. News U.S. News Nigerian underwear bomber gets life sentence By U.S. News Umar Abdumutallab, the man who tried to blow up an airplane on Christmas day two years ago, has been sentenced in a federal courtroom in Detroit. NBC's Pete Williams reports. By msnbc.com staff and news services DETROIT -- Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound international flight with and underwear bomb on Christmas Day 2009 on behalf of al-Qaida, was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday. The hearing before federal Judge Nancy Edmunds was an open platform for Abdulmutallab and passengers and crew of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 who wanted to speak. Abdulmutallab, 25, the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, pleaded guilty in October and admitted he was on a suicide mission for al-Qaida when he tried to detonate explosive chemicals hidden in his underwear minutes before the plane landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab In his court statement Thursday, according to NBC station WDIV of Detroit, Abdulmutallab praised Allah and ranted that his life and the life of Muslims has changed. He said al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the government says were killed are alive. He called his sentencing hearing a day of victory and claimed U.S. attorneys on his case intentionally misquoted him and mishandled his case "to achieve their Hebrew goals." He said the Jews need to be "ripped out of Palestine … the capital of the Muslim world." Assistant U.S. Attorney Cathleen Corken played an FBI video to demonstrate the destructive force of explosives similar to those Abdulmutallab carried. A brief but intense flame was seen in slow motion when the explosives were detonated in an outdoor field on a sheet of aluminum sitting on two wooden sawhorses. RAW VIDEO: The Justice Department has released video of FBI tests showing the potential explosive force equivalent to the underwear bomb device Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009.

Edmunds, in sentencing Abdulmutallab to multiple life sentences, said, “The defendant has never expressed doubt or regret or remorse about his mission,” The Detroit Free Press reported. “To the contrary, he sees that mission as divinely inspired and a continuing mission.” As Edmunds said the sentence was "just punishment" for what he had done, Abdulmutallab sat quietly with his hands folded under his chin and did not show any reaction. Inside the courtroom: Updates from NBC station WDIV The government said Abdulmutallab first performed a ritual in the airplane lavatory — brushing his teeth and perfuming himself — and returned to his seat. The device didn't work as planned, but still produced flame, smoke and panic in the cabin. In a defiant speech as he pleaded guilty in October, Abdulmutallab said he was carrying a "blessed weapon" to avenge Muslims who have been killed or poorly treated around the world. He admitted he was inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric and leading al-Qaida figure in Yemen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike last fall.

"The Quran obliges every able Muslim to participate in jihad and fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, and kill them wherever you find them ... an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," Abdulmutallab said. Anthony Chambers, an attorney appointed to assist Abdulmutallab, had urged Edmunds to declare that a mandatory life sentence is unconstitutional, claiming it is a cruel punishment in a case where no one but Abdulmutallab was physically hurt. His groin was badly burned. The government said that is not the threshold. "Unsuccessful terrorist attacks still engender fear in the broader public, which, after all, is one of their main objectives," prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday. "In addition, the enormous cost of the augmented security measures adopted as a direct result of defendant's unsuccessful terrorist attack are borne by the American public at large in both increased cost, inconvenience and wasted time at airports." Among four passengers and a crew member who testified, WDIV reported, was Kurt Haskell, a lawyer who was traveling with his wife, Lori.

Haskell, reiterating charges in his blog, said the government conspired with Abdulmutallab to carry a defective bomb onto the plane to give the government a reason to install full-body scanners at airports. The Associated Press reported that passenger Shama Chopra, 56, of Montreal, also plans to speak in court. She ran unsuccessfully for the Canadian Parliament in 2011, a race she couldn't have imagined joining years ago. "I don't have to feel weak," Chopra said Wednesday. "I don't have to be scared of anything. God has given me a second chance to live." The Associated Press contributed to this report. ABC News via Getty Images This handout government image provided by ABC news shows the underwear with the explosive worn by alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in his failed attempt to down a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Dec. 28, 2009. More content from msnbc.com and NBC News Dirty undies spoiled bomb plot Email a friend A MAN who tried to blow up a transatlantic flight by detonating explosives in his underpants failed because explosives had become “degraded” after he wore the same underwear for two weeks, it has been claimed.

Known as the “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was caught trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day in 2009 en route to the US from Amsterdam. The plane made an emergency landing in Detroit after the bomb failed to go off, instead causing a fire which left Abdulmutallab with burns to his groin. US officials traced the bomb plot to al Qaeda and at his trial the 25-year-old Nigerian called the bomb a “blessed weapon” to avenge the mistreatment of Muslims. John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), told the Aspen Security Forum this week that the explosive device failed because of the length of time Abdulmutallab wore his underpants. Pistole said “The bomber had had the device with him for over two weeks.” Asked if this meant the bomb had become damp, he replied: “Let’s say it was degraded.” After the botched explosion passengers and crew members were able to restrain Abdulmutallab and put out the fire on the Northwest flight. Not so smooth ...

Blake Garvey is the latest contestant on The Bachelor Australia.Source:News Corp Australia IN NATIONAL NEWS — THE producers of The Bachelor go all out to ensure Blake Garvey looks suave on screen but one stunt didn’t quite go to plan. — THE parents of Fatima Dyczynski completed their pilgrimage of pain to the MH17 crash site last night, laying flowers atop plane debris. — HEALTH Minister Peter Dutton enrages parents of sick kids by removing their posts from his Facebook page and accusing them of working for a drug firm. — A SPATE of suicides among fly-in, fly-out workers last year has been referred to the State Coroner for a potential inquest. — FORMER Prime Minister Kevin ‘747’ Rudd lived up to his nickname in his final weeks in office, splurging $500,000 on taxpayer-funded VIP plane flights in just five weeks. Bodies back ... Hearses carrying the coffins with the remains of the victims of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 plane crash leave Eindhoven military airport.Source:AFP IN WORLD NEWS — THE last bodies removed from the MH17 crash site have arrived in the Netherlands met with quiet applause by grieving relatives.

— FOREIGN Minister Julie Bishop has warned of the risk of more tragedy after a bereaved Australian couple made a pilgrimage to the MH17 crash site. — THE United States has evacuated all its staff from its embassy in Libya amid warnings the country could be torn apart by fierce new fighting. — HAMAS says it fired several rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip after a 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire, despite a four-hour Israeli extension — TWO Ukrainian mayors have been targeted in separate attacks, with one shot dead while the other’s house was hit by an antitank rocket. — UN experts have found the second black box recorder of the Air Algerie plane that crashed in a remote area of Mali, killing at least 116 people. Shower girlfriend ... This single man went to great lengths to turn his shower head into a ‘girlfriend.’Source:Supplied ELSEWHERE — THIS lonely guy set out to convert his shower head into a “beautiful woman”. He ended up with a terrifying plastic doll that vomits water . — NORTH Korea has test-fired a short-range ballistic missile into the East Sea, the latest in a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang.

— NIGERIA has brought in a raft of emergency measures, a day after the first confirmed death from Ebola in Lagos, Africa’s biggest city. Tripper ... Susan Sarandon says she still enjoys drugs at 67.Source:Getty Images IN SHOWBIZ NEWS — SUSAN Sarandon has revealed she had a fling with David Bowie and how she still loves taking drugs at 67 — but only if she is outside in nature. — SCARFACE actor Steven Bauer, 57 , who was once married to Melanie Griffith, is now dating an 18-year-old aspiring journalist. — BEYONCE took husband Jay-Z to a steakhouse , but is he still in the doghouse? The troubled couple dine out together amid breakup rumours. — BRITNEY Spears has returned to her Mouseketeer roots , treating her kids to some fun in the sun at Disneyland. — KENDALL and Kylie Jenner , younger sisters of Kim Kardashian, have been seen snuggling up to Justin Bieber’s best mate Lil Twist. — THE fun never ends for Cara Delevingne . Fresh from partying in France with Selena Gomez, the British supermodel is now chasing rainbows in California. Call for sacking ...

Kevin Pietersen wants Alastair Cook’s head.Source:News Limited IN SPORTS NEWS — KEVIN Pietersen has made another call for Alastair Cook to quit the England cricket captaincy, after a run of ten Tests without a win. — WORLD championship leader Nico Rosberg claimed pole at the Hungary GP after teammate Lewis Hamilton’s car set on fire in qualifying. — MANCHESTER United playmaker Juan Mata has given his seal of approval to the tactical system introduced by new manager Louis van Gaal. — INDIA’s captain has hit out at a fine against teammate Ravindra Jadeja, saying he was innocent in a tussle with an England cricketer. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: More Like Me in Yemen; Northwest Flight 253 Terror Suspect Says More Bombers On the Way - ABC News ABC News Abdulmutallab: More Like Me In Yemen By Brian Ross Star Reuters/U.S. Marshals Service Authorities investigate Northwest flight 253 on the tarmac at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus, Michigan December 27, 2009.

0 Shares Email American officials have cause to worry there may be more al Qaeda-trained young men in Yemen planning to bring down American jets. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged with the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253, told FBI agents there were more just like him in Yemen who would strike soon. And in a tape released four days before the attempted destruction of the Detroit-bound Northwest plane, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen boasted of what was planned for Americans, saying, "We are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of God." Yemen has become a principal al Qaeda training ground and the accused suicide bomber told the FBI he was trained for more than a month in Yemen, given 80 grams of a high explosive cleverly sewn into his underpants, undetected by standard security screening. Play null "They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles' heel in our airport security system," said ABC News consultant and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. Law enforcement authorities say tragedy was averted only because the bomb's detonator did not work. "I think it's very clear it came very, very close," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee.

"The explosive device went off, it became an incendiary device instead of an explosive device, which is probably what saved that airplane." On Sunday, in its first communication since the failed Northwest Airline bombing, Al Qaeda in Yemen released a written statement about the December 17 air strike in Yemen. The statement called on "the people of the Arabian peninsula" to attack American military installations, ships and "spying embassies." The U.S. Embassy in Yemen was attacked by Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in September 2008, and the U.S.S. Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer, was hit by Al Qaeda in 2000. Abdulmutallab's Life of Privilege Abdulmutallab led a life of privilege as the son of a prominent Nigerian banker. He lived in an upscale neighborhood in London, attended top boarding schools and a London college. Michael Rimmer, one of his former high school teachers, called him "a model student, very keen, very enthusiastic." "He was a very nice, friendly person," said Efemena Mokedi, a former classmate.

"He was a person who did a lot of good things." In e-mails sent over the last six years, and obtained by ABC News, Abdulmutallab worried whether his religion would allow him to attend a high school prom, worried about low college SAT test scores, expressed opposition to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then prior to breaking with his parents, questioned whether it was okay to lie to deceive the enemy. Explained Clarke, "The kind of person, who's being radicalized increasingly in the U.S. and in Europe, are people who are sons of the middle class, the upper middle class, sons of well educated families, people who have radicalized at long distance over the Internet." The suspect's father was so concerned about his son's radicalization he actually alerted the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that his son could be a threat to America. Abdulmutallab was put on a terror watch list, along with 550,000 others, but he was not put on the no-fly list and his U.S. visa, which he obtained a year and a half ago, was not revoked. He used the visa to board the flight to Detroit Christmas morning.

0 Shares BBC News - Father alerted US about Nigerian plane bomb suspect Father alerted US about Nigerian plane bomb suspect Mr Abdulmutallab is from a wealthy Nigerian family The father of a Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a transatlantic jet on Christmas Day had voiced concerns to US officials about his son. The father, a top Nigerian banker, warned US authorities last month about 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's extreme views, say officials. US sources confirm a file was opened, but say the information did not warrant placing the accused on a "no-fly" list. Airports worldwide have increased security after the alleged attack. Mr Abdulmutallab was formally charged by a US federal judge at a Michigan hospital where he is being treated for burns after allegedly trying to detonate a device. British police are also searching a flat in a smart area of London, where Mr Abdulmutallab is believed to have lived while studying in the city. 'Sewn in underpants' The detainee reportedly smiled as agents brought him in to the room in a wheelchair, dressed in a green hospital robe and with a blanket over his lap.

The Northwest Airlines plane had been carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew High explosives are believed to have been moulded to his body and sewn into his underpants. He was immediately overpowered by passengers and crew aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253, minutes before it was due to land in Detroit from the Dutch capital Amsterdam. The suspect was charged with placing a destructive device on the Airbus 330, which was carrying 289 passengers and crew, and attempting to destroy the jet. UMAR FAROUK ABDULMUTALLAB Fresh security fears His father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, is a prominent banker well-connected in Nigeria's political world, the BBC's Caroline Duffield reports from Lagos. In recent months Mr Mutallab is said to have become alarmed about the political views of his son, who is a former engineering student at University College London. He approached the US embassy in Abuja in November to voice concerns about his son, according to American officials. The family have told the BBC Hausa service that they lost contact with Mr Mutallab in October, when he was living in Yemen.

He left there for Ethiopia, then went to Ghana and finally Nigeria, US officials have told his family. How the accused, who had a valid US travel visa, boarded a flight in Lagos to Amsterdam, despite being on a database listing individuals of concern to the authorities, is a key question, our correspondent says. Anti-terrorist measures in Nigeria's airports are haphazard and corruption among police, customs and security officials is endemic, she adds. Officials in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, told news agencies that Mr Abdulmutallab's name had been added to a security watch-list of more than half a million individuals, known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (Tide). But there was apparently not enough information to include his name on the smaller Terrorist Screening Data Base, which includes a no-fly list. It is understood that members of Mr Abdulmutallab's family are travelling to the Nigerian capital Abuja on Sunday to meet police and government officials. 'Nice and polite' A preliminary FBI analysis has found that the device allegedly found on Mr Abdulmutallab contained the high explosive PETN, also known as pentaerythritol.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's former teacher Mike Rimmer PETN was used in the device worn by British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who is serving a prison sentence for attempting to blow up a Paris-Miami airliner in Christmas week of 2001. Mr Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate a device using a syringe, but it failed to go off. The suspect has reportedly told investigators he had links to al-Qaeda and received the explosives in Yemen for a suicide attack, after a month of training. Mr Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for about 20 minutes before the incident, court documents say. When he got back to his seat, he said he had an upset stomach and pulled a blanket over himself, the affidavit continues. "Passengers then heard popping noises similar to firecrackers, smelled an odour, and some observed Abdulmutallab's pants, leg and the wall of the airplane on fire," the Department of Justice said in a statement. Dutch tourist Jasper Schuringa, credited with tackling the suspect first, is being hailed as a hero by fans on the internet.

The 32-year-old Dutch filmmaker said when he heard a bang and smelled smoke he felt immediately it was a terrorist attack. Mr Schuringa added that the alleged bomber had not become aggressive after the alleged bomb failed to detonate. "He was actually a normal person, he was very scared, he had a very frightened look, he wasn't resisting or anything," he told the BBC. "I also spoke later to one of the Dutch people who was sitting next to him and they said he was a really nice and polite man. So he was someone you wouldn't expect to commit a crime like this." Meanwhile, delays have been caused to transatlantic flights after airlines flying in to and around the US tightened security. Measures include cutting down on hand baggage, extra frisking of passengers at passport control and allowing more boarding time. Bookmark with: Plane bomb plan foiled by 'degraded' underwear - World - NZ Herald News Plane bomb plan foiled by 'degraded' underwear 5:47 PM Sunday Jul 27, 2014 SHARE: al Qaeda Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Photo / Getty Images The notorious underwear bomber's plot in 2009 to blow up a plane on Christmas Day failed because the explosives became 'degraded' after he wore the same pair of underpants for two weeks, according to a U.S. official. Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was on a suicide mission when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his underpants as the plane, en route from Amsterdam, approached Detroit. The bomb however failed to detonate aboard the flight, which was carrying nearly 300 people, but caused a brief fire that caused burns to his groin. He was sentenced to life without parole in February 2012 after he pleaded guilty to all charges on the second day of his trial the previous October. The head of the Transportation Security Administration said this week the bomb failed to detonate because of how long Abdulmutallab had been wearing his underwear.

John Pistole told the Aspen Security Forum: "The bomber had had the device with him for over two weeks." Mr Pistole was then asked whether the bomb had become 'damp', to which he replied: "Let's say it was degraded." During his trial, Abdulmutallab said the bomb in his underwear was a 'blessed weapon' to avenge poorly treated Muslims around the world. After the bomb failed to detonate, passengers pounced on Abdulmutallab and forced him to the front of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 where he was held until the plane landed minutes later. In 2009, months before the attack, he travelled to Yemen to see Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and one of the best-known al Qaeda figures, according to the government. He told investigators that his mission was approved after a three-day visit with his mentor. Al-Awlaki and the bomb maker were killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011, just days before Abdulmutallab's trial. At the time, President Barack Obama publicly blamed al-Awlaki for the terrorism plot. - Daily Mail

Question: What was the destination city of the plane carrying Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 'underpants bomber'?
Answer: Detroit