12/28/09
from The Sun (UK)
Bomb Plotter: 'More Like Me'
By STAFF REPORTERS
FAILED plane bomber Umar Abdulmutallab has bragged to FBI agents that there are
more young men plotting to launch attacks on the West.
The 23-year-old Nigerian has told security chiefs of a sinister network in Yemen
who are ready and waiting to strike.
The reports come after The Sun revealed that cops fear that 25 British-born
Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners.
The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen.
It was there London-educated Abdulmutallab prepared for his Christmas Day bid to
blow up a US jet.
The British extremists in Yemen are in their early 20s and from Bradford, Luton
and Leytonstone, East London.
They are due to return to the UK early in 2010 and will then await internet
instructions from al-Qaeda on when to strike.
A Scotland Yard source said: "The great fear is Abdulmutallab is the first of
many ready to attack planes and kill tens of thousands.
"We know there are four or five radicalised British Muslim cells in the Yemen.
"They are due back within months when they will be under constant surveillance."
The 25 suspects, of Pakistani and Somali descent, were radicalised in UK
mosques.
Some had been to university and studied engineering or computer sciences.
Others were former street gang members.
Monitored
Special Branch monitored them as they flew to Yemen, in the Middle East, from
British airports in the spring and summer.
In almost every case, their tickets were paid for in cash and bought less than a
week before travel.
The source added: "Imams would have promised them rewards in heaven for becoming
suicide bombers prepared to kill Westerners."
PM Gordon Brown and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson were
being briefed.
Today Alan Johnson confirmed Abdulmutallab had been refused a new visa and
placed on a watch list last May after applying for a bogus course.
Mr Johnson said: "If you are on our watch list then you do not come into this
country.
"You can come through this country if you are in transit to another country but
you cannot come into this country."
The Home Secretary said US authorities should theoretically have been informed,
and he doubted there had been a "hiccup" in procedures.
American officials have said Abdulmutallab was on one of their "long" watch
lists, but was not banned from travelling.
Mr Johnson also said he did not believe Abdulmutallab was acting alone.
He added: "We don't know yet whether it was a single-handed plot or (there were)
other people behind it - I suspect it's the latter rather than the former."
Dutch cops are investigating claims that an accomplice helped Abdulmutallab
board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
A US couple on the flight, Kurt and Lori Haskell, said they saw a tall,
well-dressed man aged about 50 with Abdulmutallab on Friday morning at
Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.
The Haskells have claimed the man spoke for Abdulmutallab and attempted to get
him aboard Northwest flight 253 without a passport.
Disappearance
Abdulmutallab's family released a statement today saying they alerted security
agencies two months ago after losing contact with him.
The Nigerian's parents described his disappearance as "completely out of
character" and a "very recent development".
Abdulmutallab's family said they had lost contact with him while he was studying
abroad.
The statement said: "His father, having become concerned about his disappearance
and stoppage of communication while schooling abroad, reported the matter to
Nigerian security agencies about two months ago and to some foreign security
agencies about a month and a half ago".
The warnings came as another Nigerian was last night held in Detroit on the same
flight attacked on Christmas Day. It later emerged the man had fallen ill.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen warned the West four days before Friday's attack that a
bombing was imminent.
Terrorist Mohammed al-Kalwi issued the video threat in the wake of a Yemeni
airstrike on a militant training camp.
Al-Kalwi was reportedly killed in another airstrike on Thursday.
President Barack Obama's administration is to review all airport security.
Umar Abdulmutallab
* * * * *
Obuma administration officials have vowed to tighten security efforts against elderly white Christians until the terrorists finally realize that they can not win the war against the bureaucrats, accept U.S. citizenship, apply for welfare and vote democratic.
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