The White House confirms that there was an attempted terrorist attack on Flight 253 in Detroit. The plane and passengers are safe, with two claiming minor injuries last I found. The would-be terrorist is injured because he basically seems to have set his lap on fire when the bomb failed to go off.
Riehl World View reports the White House as saying:that Obama had conferred with White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan and National Security Council Acting Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and had instructed that "all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel."
The Department of Homeland Security said passengers might see additional screening measures on domestic and international flights because of the incident and urged travelers to report any suspicious activity or behavior to law enforcement officials.
As opposed to all the inappropriate measures previously taken to decrease security, I guess. Long term readers will recall that I am the mother of a mentally handicapped, 80 pound 23 year old who looks 9 and functions at the level of a 2 year old and cannot talk but nonetheless was whisked away by airport security in Denver behind my back, while I THOUGHT she was being safely cared for by an airport staff person who was pushing her wheel chair and I was six inches away watching my 11 year old go through security without me and my 13 year old being given grief over a freaking travel bottle of hand lotion, I hate to think what these increased measures will look like.
The Cherub was placed ALONE behind a glass barrier and they walked off, telling her to stay there even though she could not understand a word they said. Dangerous mentally retarded 80 pound, four feet tall little girls who cannot talk get placed behind barriers. Grown men with bombs, they slip through.
Anyway, Michelle has more on the attempted terrorism on flight 253, pointing out specifically the similarities between the way the media and the WhiteHouse and Security (even though it is a different Whitehouse) treat this incident and the way the Shoe Bomber was handled.
The Shoe Bomber was also a December attempt:
The FBI is expected to focus on whether the Nigerian acted alone or had training from Al Qaeda or another network. There will be great interest also in the nature and destructive capacity of the explosive device and on how it got past airport security screeners.
Nigerians have not figured in many cases involving Al Qaeda, but the rise of violent Islamic extremism in that country, and in sub-Saharan Africa overall, concerns Western anti-terrorism officials.
The timing and description of the incident recall the attempted attack on a Paris-to-Miami flight eight years ago by "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, a British Al Qaeda operative who was convicted in U.S. federal court of trying to blow up the American Airlines flight.
Soon after takeoff from Paris on Dec. 22, 2001, Reid tried to ignite explosives that had been packed into his high-top gym shoes in an attempt to blow a hole in the plane. A flight attendant and passenger subdued Reid and foiled the attack, which spread fear across the world just three months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
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Update 1: The Times Online UK: He was identified by ABC News as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, an engineering student at University College London.
He was reportedly on a US intelligence “watch-list” but not on the US Government’s no-fly list.
Further:
According to ABC News, the suspect told authorities that he had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to detonate the powder.
Syed Jafry, of Holland, Michigan, told the Detroit News that he was sitting in the 16th row when he heard “a pop and saw some smoke and fire”. Mr Jafry said that people ran out of their seats to tackle the suspect.
Reportedly, he has second degree burns and is being questioned in the hospital where he's being treated.
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Update 2: Other reports give his name as Abdul Mudallad. The Belmont Club reports that Abdul chose his airline seat very deliberately:
Seat 19A is right over the wing and near the fuel tanks as shown in the diagram above, taken from an NWA passenger guide to seating on an A330. The shaded area represents the swept-back wing. Presumably, Mudallad timed his actions to coincide with the lowering of the landing gear, which signified that the airliner was over Detroit. Had his explosives worked correctly, the Airbus might have crashed into the city itself with incalculable results.
Richard Fernandez has a diagram of the plain and Mudallad's seat (click on the Belmont Club link above).
Reports are that the bomb failed to detonate, but the man did set his pants on fire. Passengers called for water, put out the fire, and then an intrepid and noble Dutchman tackled the terrorist and held him until other arrangements were possible. Good for him, but, as Fernandez points out, the entire plane just missed being blown to smithereens- once the guy's pants were on fire it was really already past the zero hour point.
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