Intelligence knew of al Qaeda 'Christmas surprise', media say

Intelligence agencies knew al Qaeda was plotting "a Christmas surprise" US media have reported, as the search for answers after the failed December 25 attack on a US passenger plane intensified.

AFP - US intelligence agencies scrambled Wednesday to explain security lapses that almost led to the mid-air bombing of a US jet as reports emerged they knew Al-Qaeda was plotting "a Christmas surprise."

An angered US President Barack Obama has demanded a full accounting into what he described as systemic intelligence failures after the December 25 attack on a Northwest plane traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Initial reports are due on his desk Thursday.

US media reported intelligence agencies believed Al-Qaeda was plotting a "Christmas surprise" but the counterterrorism office was too flooded to pinpoint a suspected airplane bomber.

"We'd been tracking this stuff for months, without being able to connect the dots of what was happening and what was going to happen," CBS television quoted a high-ranking unnamed intelligence official as saying Wednesday.

The official said the problem lay at the National Counterterrorism Center, which tracks terrorist threats and gets "8,000 messages a day."

"We couldn't come up with something that was credible -- so we assumed Al-Qaeda was still in the planning stages," the official said.

Obama, who was Tuesday told there had been warnings of a Christmas Day attack, has ordered two reviews as an Al-Qaeda affiliate based in Yemen claimed it was behind the plot.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallah, is suspected of trying to blow up the flight and of visiting Yemen and receiving training for his mission from an Al-Qaeda bomb maker their.

The attack has further brought the Gulf State into the microscope, as concerns grow that it has become a haven for Islamic terror groups.

On Wednesday, Yemeni security forces wounded several Al-Qaeda suspects and arrested one in clashes, as it called for Western help to rout the Islamist militants.

An official told AFP the fighting erupted in the western province of Al-Hudaydah region, during an operation to arrest Al-Qaeda suspects in the Deir Jaber region north of the city of Bajil.

Obama has also demanded a review of the no-fly list system and another report into how the suspect, a 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, managed to get past security at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

The US president was also told that the would-be bomber -- who was alleged to have been wearing underpants containing explosive chemicals -- had been identified as a threat, but the data was not properly distributed.

"A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable," Obama said Tuesday during his vacation in Hawaii.

"We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake."

The CIA rejected accusations that it failed to share vital information about Abdulmutallab that might have led to his being placed on a no-fly list.

"We learned of Abdulmutallab in November, when his father came to the US embassy in Nigeria and sought help in finding him. We did not have his name before then," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano.

He said the CIA had worked with the embassy to ensure Abdulmutallab was placed in the US terrorist database.

"We also forwarded key biographical information about him to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)" Gimigliano said.

A US intelligence official told AFP the CIA's interview with the father had failed to yield any "smoking gun piece of evidence" that would have led to Abdulmutallab being placed on a no-fly list.

In the Netherlands, where an intelligence review is also taking place, Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst announced all US-bound passengers will now undergo full body scans at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

"All 15 of the scanners currently available at Schiphol will be put into use within the next three weeks," once new software has been installed allowing the the machines to detect non-metal objects, she said.

Quoting the results of an initial Dutch probe, Horst told reporters: "The preparation of the failed attack against passenger flight NW 253 Amsterdam-Detroit was fairly professional, but its execution was amateurish."

"The explosive used is not easy to make and its production is not without risk," she added.

The attempted attack was foiled when a passenger leaped on Abdulmutallab as he struggled to detonate the explosives stitched into his underwear.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged the United States to work with the airline industry to find ways to close security gaps, warning the industry could not long support 100-percent passenger searches.

Date created : 2009-12-31