Results tagged “umarfaroukabdulmutallab”

Sen. Charles Schumer called on airlines to stop servicing foreign airports with security practices that don't meet American standards, according to NY1. In a move he hopes will close the "gaping holes" in overseas air travel security, the senior Democratic senator wants carriers to report any security issues at foreign airports and threaten boycotts if measures aren't changed. more ›

President Obama used his weekly address to discuss the Christmas Day incident where a Nigerian national allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight landing in Detroit. And he said, for the first time, that suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab may be linked to Al Qaeda, "It appears that he joined an affiliate of Al Qaeda, and that this group — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America." [Video after the jump] more ›

After being attacked by critics in the wake of the thankfully unsuccessful attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight last week, the White House addressed critics head on. Communications director Dan Pfeiffer posted a response—especially towards former Vice President Dick Cheney—on the White House website yesterday saying that President Obama has acknowledged the U.S. is "at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and - unlike the last Administration - we are not at war with a tactic ('terrorism'), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered." Further: more ›

With President Obama admitting that "systemic failure" allowed a Nigerian national on a terror watch list and allegedly attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight last week, the knives are out. Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Politico, "[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.” more ›

Yesterday, President Obama spoke again about the thankfully failed attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight last week—and this time he was more forceful in his criticism of federal agencies' "mix of human and systemic failures" to address the matter. The NY Times reports, "The president was told during a private briefing on Tuesday morning while vacationing here in Hawaii that the government had a variety of information in its possession before the thwarted bombing that would have been a clear warning sign had it been shared among agencies, a senior official said." more ›

Rep. Peter King (R-Long Island), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, demanded that suspected plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab be tried in a military tribunal. Speaking to NBC, he said, "I think that the administration has made a mistake by treating this terrorist as a common criminal — by putting him into the criminal justice system. I wish they would have put him into a military tribunal so we could get as much intelligence and information out of him as we could." more ›

ABC News showed photographs of the underwear worn by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab while he allegedly tried to destroy a Northwest Airlines flight landing in Detroit last week. ABC News explains, "The first photo... shows the slightly charred underpants with the bomb packet still in place... The bomb packet is a six-inch long container of the high-explosive chemical PETN, less than a half cup in volume, weighing about 80 grams. A government test with 50 grams of PETN blew a hole in the side of an airliner. That was the amount in the bomb carried by the so-called shoe bomber Richard Reid over Christmas 2001. The underpants bomb would have been one and a half times as powerful." more ›

Rep. Peter King (R-Long Island), who is a ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, has unleashed a torrent of criticism towards the Obama administration regarding its handling of the alleged attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight that landed in Detroit on Christmas Day. He told WCBS 2, "I'm disappointed it's taken the president 72 hours to even address this issue. Basically nobody, the president, the vice president, the attorney general, nobody except Secretary Napolitano has come out. And she said yesterday everything worked well." more ›

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian national charged with trying to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, was released from the hospital and removed to a federal prison as authorities try to understand how he smuggled a deadly explosive onto the plane and why, despite his family's warnings to the U.S. Embassy, he was allowed to fly. And a day after saying that "everything happened that should have," today Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano admitted that the system failed. more ›

The U.S. government charged Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man, with attempting to destroy a Northwest Airlines plane as it was landing in Detroit yesterday. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said, "ad this alleged plot to destroy an airplane been successful, scores of innocent people would have been killed or injured. We will continue to investigate this matter vigorously, and we will use all measures available to our government to ensure that anyone responsible for this attempted attack is brought to justice." And the Justice Department's statement notes: more ›