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Author Topic: Shooting at Ft. Hood Texas 11/05/09 13 dead, 43 wounded-(Murder Charges)  (Read 730172 times)
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« Reply #1020 on: January 05, 2010, 08:05:26 PM »

Editorial: Threat assessment

Published: Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, January 4, 2010 at 2:02 p.m.

When a father calls a U.S. embassy and informs authorities that his son has been "radicalized" and may be a terrorist, someone ought to pay attention.

Likewise, when a U.S. Army officer starts to exchange e-mails with radical clerics and starts talking about decapitating infidels, someone should pay attention.

Unfortunately, they didn't. Authorities say the radicalized son tried to blow up a jetliner entering this country on Christmas Day.

The Army officer is accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.

Authorities need to review passenger screening, and they have to review the way they handle terrorism tips. The passenger screening is complex, but the simpler of the two. Authorities must examine the manner in which explosives were brought onto the plane and determine the best way to make sure it never happens again.

The problem of better handling terrorism tips is more difficult because federal authorities have about a half-million entries in their terrorism database. That's too many to follow up on every case.

Law enforcement needs a better method to screen them, determining which are potentially serious and allocate their resources to those that have the potential to cause real harm.

The consequences of allowing terrorists to fly are obvious, but the consequences of putting too many innocent people on the no-fly list is that the list will become unworkable and eventually irrelevant.

The nation needs a full and intense review of these issues, free of partisan rhetoric.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100105/OPINION01/1051000/1017
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« Reply #1021 on: January 05, 2010, 08:58:44 PM »

U.S. Retools Military Intelligence
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126273596828417151.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Strike on CIA base tests U.S. assessment of al Qaeda

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60451U20100105

Return of Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay is suspended
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/05/AR2010010502850.html?hpid=topnews

Obama reaffirms Guantanamo Bay prison closure plans
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8442543.stm
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« Reply #1022 on: January 06, 2010, 03:24:26 PM »

Jordanian doctor called double agent behind CIA attack

From Caroline Faraj, CNN
January 5, 2010 4:52 p.m. EST

Video:  http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/05/jordan.cia.bombing/

(CNN) -- The man identified as the double agent who killed eight people at a U.S. base in Afghanistan was a Jordanian doctor recruited as a counterterrorism intelligence source, a senior Jordanian official said Tuesday.

A former U.S. intelligence official identified the suicide bomber Monday as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi.

The Jordanian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities in Jordan arrested al-Balawi more than a year ago "for some suspicious information related to him" but released him because of a lack of evidence.

"After few months, he got in touch with us through the Internet and sent us several e-mails that include very important and rather dangerous information that might affect the security and stability of the country," the official said.

"We kept in touch with him through e-mails in order to get more information and also trying to bring him over to be able to get more information. We shared and exchanged the information he gave us with some other friendly countries that are involved in countering terrorism."

The official said Jordan could not confirm that al-Balawi was the bomber, "because we are not on the ground."

"But we are not denying that if he is the one, then he is the Jordanian doctor," the official said.

The December 30 blast at a U.S. base in Khost, in southeastern Afghanistan, killed seven CIA operatives including two from private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater. The eighth victim was Jordanian Army Capt. Sharif Ali bin Zeid, a cousin of Jordan's King Abdullah II.

U.S. sources said bin Zeid was the Jordanian operative working closely with al-Balawi, who was from the same hometown as the onetime leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Jordanian and U.S. intelligence agencies apparently believed that al-Balawi had been rehabilitated from his extremist views and were using him to hunt Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 figure, the former intelligence official said.

In a posting on its Web site last week, the Taliban in Afghanistan claimed that the bomber was an Afghan National Army soldier.

On Sunday, however, Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud said in an e-mail that his arm of the Islamic movement carried out the attack, using a Jordanian national. Mehsud's message predicted, "This will be admitted by the CIA and the Jordanian government."

The attack was "a huge blow, symbolically and tactically," because it eliminated such a large number of CIA officers, who can require years to become ingrained in the region, said Reva Bhalla, director of analysis for the international intelligence firm STRATFOR. In addition, the attack showed the ability of the Taliban to penetrate perhaps the most difficult of targets: a CIA base, she said.

Former CIA official Robert Richer called it the greatest loss of life for the agency since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed eight agents. An American intelligence official vowed last week that the United States would avenge the attack.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/05/jordan.cia.bombing/index.html
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« Reply #1023 on: January 06, 2010, 03:34:50 PM »

Suicide bomber's actions 'out of character' says brother

January 6, 2010 -- Updated 1633 GMT (0033 HKT)

Amman, Jordan (CNN) -- The brother of the suicide bomber who killed eight people at a U.S. base in Afghanistan last week told CNN his sibling's actions were "out of character" and that the man was "under pressure."

The bomber was a Jordanian doctor recruited as a counterterrorism intelligence source, a senior Jordanian official said Tuesday. A former U.S. intelligence official identified the man earlier this week as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi.

The man's father, who is shocked by his relative's actions, said he was called by an Afghan speaking in broken Arabic from Afghanistan. The Afghan told him his son was dead and that he died as a hero in an operation to kill CIA agents.

The caller said, according to the father, the circumstances could make problems for his family and that they will have to cope with it.

But the caller told the man's father his son was a hero. The brother and father spoke to CNN's Nic Robertson.

The December 30 blast at a U.S. base in Khost, in southeastern Afghanistan, killed seven CIA operatives, including two from private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater. The eighth victim was Jordanian Army Capt. Sharif Ali bin Zeid, a cousin of Jordan's King Abdullah II.


The suspected suicide bomber left Jordan a year ago for Turkey to finish his medical studies, but his family realized three months later he wasn't there, relatives said. The family didn't know whether the Afghan caller was from al Qaeda but believes it was some militant group.

A Jordanian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said authorities in Jordan arrested al-Balawi more than a year ago "for some suspicious information related to him" but released him due to lack of evidence.

"After (a) few months, he got in touch with us through the Internet and sent us several e-mails that include very important and rather dangerous information that might affect the security and stability of the country," the official told CNN.

"We kept in touch with him through e-mails in order to get more information and also trying to bring him over to be able to get more information. We shared and exchanged the information he gave us with some other friendly countries that are involved in countering terrorism."

The official said Jordan could not confirm that al-Balawi was the bomber, "because we are not on the ground."

"But we are not denying that if he is the one, then he is the Jordanian doctor," the official said.

U.S. sources said bin Zeid was the Jordanian operative working closely with al-Balawi, who was from the same hometown as the onetime leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Jordanian and U.S. intelligence agencies apparently believed al-Balawi had been rehabilitated from his extremist views and were using him to hunt Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 figure, the former intelligence official said.

Former CIA official Robert Richer called the bombing the greatest loss of life for the agency since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed eight agents.

An American intelligence official vowed last week that the United States would avenge the attack.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/06/afghanistan.jordanian.attack/
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« Reply #1024 on: January 06, 2010, 03:40:30 PM »

Wife Says CIA Bomber Saw US as Adversary

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 6, 2010

Filed at 1:44 p.m. ET

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- The wife of the suspected Jordanian double agent who killed seven CIA workers in Afghanistan said Wednesday her husband regard the United States as an adversary.

Defne Bayrak, the Turkish wife of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, told Turkish media by telephone she was shocked at the news that her husband blew himself up at a base in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, killing himself and the officers.

Bayrak, who lives in Istanbul, said her husband had plans to become a specialist in surgery in Turkey and doubts he was working for the CIA.

''I don't believe that he was an agent for CIA or for Jordan,'' she told private NTV television. ''He was someone who even did not like to leave home.''

Bayrak, an Arabic language translator for some Turkish media outlets, later told private CNN-Turk television that while in Jordan her husband wrote articles for Jihad Web sites, in which the United States is considered an adversary.

Al-Balawi spoke openly about wanting to die in a holy war, calling tirelessly for jihad against Israel and the United States, said Mohammed Yousef, one of his high school classmates in Jordan.

Jordanian intelligence was aware of these statements when they arrested al-Balawi last March, according to counterterrorism officials based in the Middle East.

Jordanian intelligence believed the devout 32-year-old doctor had been persuaded to support U.S. efforts against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and wanted al-Balawi to help capture or kill Ayman al-Zawahri, a fellow doctor from Egypt who is Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, according to another counterterrorism official based in the Middle East.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on matters involving the CIA and Jordan's national security.

Bayrak confirmed that al-Balawi was jailed for three days last March and left Jordan shortly after that, saying he was going to Pakistan to become a specialist in surgery.

After those plans did not work out, al-Balawi said he got another job there, Bayrak said.

But anti-terrorism experts say he traveled to Afghanistan, suggesting he had agreed to take on the mission against al-Qaida, providing valuable intelligence information about al-Qaida leaders to U.S. and Jordanian agents.

Bayrak and her two daughters left Jordan in October and now live in Istanbul.

She last spoke to al-Balawi over a month ago, Bayrak said.

''It was a normal conversation, he talked about his plans to come to Turkey and become a specialist here,'' she told NTV television.

Later she told CNN-Turk television: ''I was shocked when I heard the news because he constantly spoke about coming to Turkey...I was not expecting it.''

------

Associated Press Writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Jamal Halaby in Zarqa, Jordan contributed to this report.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/06/world/AP-EU-Turkey-CIA-Afghan-Attack.html
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« Reply #1025 on: January 06, 2010, 04:24:55 PM »

Video: The many faces of the double agent CIA bomber - 06 Jan 09 Al Jazeera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylmeYE_zRdY&feature=player_embedded#at=29

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« Reply #1026 on: January 06, 2010, 04:28:40 PM »

Robert Fisk: Shady dealings and the enemies within

By Robert Fisk
4:00 AM Thursday Jan 7, 2010

In the vast American embassy in the hills outside the Jordanian capital of Amman, a senior United States Special Forces officer runs an equally special office.

He buys information from Jordanian Army and intelligence officers - for cash, of course - but he also helps to train Afghan and Iraqi policemen and soldiers.

The information he seeks is not just about al Qaeda, but about Jordanians themselves, about the Army's loyalty to King Abdullah II as well as about the anti-American insurgents who live in Jordan, primarily Iraqi but also Iraqi al Qaeda contacts with Afghanistan.

It's easy to buy Army officers in the Middle East. The Americans spent much of 2001 and 2002 buying up the warlords of Afghanistan. They paid for Jordanian troops to join their own occupation Army in Iraq - which was why the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad was ruthlessly bombed by Washington's enemies.

What the CIA's double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi did - like so many al Qaeda followers, he was a doctor - was routine. He worked for both sides, because America's enemies long ago infiltrated Washington's "allies" in the Arab intelligence forces.

Even Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who effectively led the al Qaeda side of the insurgency in Iraq and was himself a Jordanian citizen, maintained contacts within Amman's General Intelligence Department, whose own senior officer, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, was killed with seven Americans last week in the CIA's greatest disaster since the Beirut US embassy bombing of 1983.

There is nothing romantic about espionage in the Middle East.

Several of the CIA men killed in Afghanistan were in fact hired mercenaries while the Jordanian "mukhabbarat" spooks, for whom both bin Zeid and al-Balawi worked, use torture routinely on Jordan's supposed enemies; indeed, they tortured men who were equally routinely "renditioned" to Amman by the CIA under the Bush Administration.

The mystery is not so much the existence of double agents within the US security apparatus in the Middle East, but just how a Jordanian "mole" could be of use in Afghanistan.

Few Arabs speak Pashto or Dari or Urdu, although a larger percentage of Afghans would speak Arabic. What it does suggest, however, is that there have been much closer links between the anti-American Iraqi insurgents based in Amman and their opposite numbers in Afghanistan.

Hitherto regarded as a purely inspirational transfer of operations, it is now clear that - despite the vast landmass of Iran between the two states - Iraqi and Afghan al Qaeda operatives have been collaborating. In other words, just as the CIA blithely assumed that it could make friends with and trust the local intelligence men in the Muslim world, so the insurgent groups could do the same.

The presence of an anti-American Jordanian spy in Afghanistan - one who would sacrifice his life so far from home - proves how close are the links between America's enemies in Amman and in eastern Afghanistan. It would not be going too far to suggest that anti-American Jordanians have connections that reach as far as Islamabad.

If this seems far-fetched, we should remember that just as the CIA first supported Arab fighters against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, it was Saudi money which paid them. In the early eighties, Saudi Arabia's own intelligence commander held regular meetings with Osama bin Laden in the Saudi embassy in Islamabad and with the Pakistani secret service, which gave logistical help to the "mujahideen" and then to the Taleban - as it still does today.

If the Americans believe that the Saudis are not sending money to their enemies in Afghanistan - or to their equally fundamentalist enemies in Iraq and Jordan - then the CIA hasn't much idea of what is going on in the Middle East.

But this, unfortunately, is probably the case. The American desire to be loved as well as feared has long misled their intelligence services into trusting those who are ostensibly their friends, while bestialising those who are their supposed enemies.

This is exactly what happened in Lebanon before a Shiite Muslim suicide bomber blew up the US embassy in Beirut in 1983, when almost the entire staff of the CIA's operations in the Middle East were meeting inside. Most were killed. The entrance to the CIA's offices in their seafront embassy was closely guarded. But their local operatives in Lebanon included men and women working for both the Israelis and the early version of the Hizbollah.

US embassy intelligence staffers dated Lebanese women who had no security clearance.

But the Jordanian-American axis was different. Here, the CIA was operating in an almost totally Sunni Muslim environment, among Jordanians who, while accepting CIA money, had many reasons to oppose Washington's policies, and the Jordanian King's. A large minority of the Jordanian "mukhabbarat" are originally Palestinians and believe that America's uncritical, fawning support for Israel has destroyed their "nation" of Palestine and is crushing their people. The CIA's desire to trust its "local hires" is not unlike the British faith in their Indian sepoys on the eve of the Indian Mutiny.

Al-Balawi's Jordanian victim, bin Zeid, was given a "martyr's" funeral in the presence of King Abdullah himself. Let's see who turns up to the burial of his murderer - if there is anything left to bury.

- INDEPENDENT
By Robert Fisk

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10618804&pnum=0
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« Reply #1027 on: January 06, 2010, 05:12:02 PM »

Nigerian Man Indicted In Plot To Blow Up Plane

ED WHITE, Associated Press Writer

POSTED: 3:06 pm EST January 6, 2010
UPDATED: 4:26 pm EST January 6, 2010

DETROIT -- A Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day was indicted Wednesday on charges including attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction to kill nearly 300 people.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was traveling from Amsterdam when he tried to destroy the plane carrying by injecting chemicals into a package of pentrite explosive concealed in his underwear, authorities say. The failed attack caused popping sounds and flames that passengers and crew rushed to extinguish.

The bomb was designed to detonate "at a time of his choosing," the grand jury's indictment said.

There is no specific mention of terrorism in the seven-page indictment, but President Barack Obama considers the incident a failed strike against the United States by an affiliate of al-Qaida.

Abdulmutallab has told U.S. investigators he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. His father warned the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria that his son had drifted into extremism in Yemen, but that threat was never fully digested by the U.S. security apparatus.

Since the failed attack, airlines and the Transportation Security Administration have boosted security in airports in the U.S. and around the world. Obama has said the government had information that could have stopped the attempted attack, but intelligence agencies failed to connect the dots.

Abdulmutallab faces up to life in prison if convicted of attempting to use a bomb on the plane. He is being held at a federal prison in Milan, Mich., and a message seeking comment was left Wednesday with his lawyer, Miriam Siefer.

He will make his first appearance in federal court on Friday for an arraignment and a hearing to determine if he stays in custody.

"Short of actual murder, these are some of the most serious charges in the criminal code," said Lloyd Meyer, a former terrorism prosecutor at U.S. war crimes tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay prison. "These charges are tailored to the facts of what happened over the sky in Detroit."

http://www.wesh.com/news/22154360/detail.html
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« Reply #1028 on: January 06, 2010, 06:10:41 PM »


Army Spc. Marc Hall

Army specialist jailed for threats against fellow soldiers, commanders

By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Online edition, Thursday, January 7, 2010

ARLINGTON, Va. — An Army specialist is in jail, accused of making threats against fellow soldiers, including in a vulgar, violent rap song that describes shooting those responsible for his stop-loss orders.

Spc. Marc Hall, an Iraq veteran based at Fort Stewart, Ga., has been in custody since early December. He’s been charged with “conduct prejudicial to the good order and discipline of the armed forces,” allegedly threatening violence on multiple occasions, according to Army charge sheets.

Hall is accused in various specifications of threatening to “go on a rampage,” attack other soldiers if he was deployed, and shoot the brigade and battalion commanders.

Another count accuses him of distributing “original songs wrongfully threatening acts of violence against members of his unit.” Hall reportedly mailed a copy of the song to the Pentagon after receiving his stop-loss orders over the summer. The song, posted on Hall’s personal Web site, does not name anyone specifically.

    “[Expletive] you colonels, captains, E-7 and above
    You think you so much bigger than I am? ...
    I’m gonna round them up all eventually, easily, walk right up peacefully
    And surprise them all, yes, yes, y’all, up against the wall, turn around
    I got a [expletive] magazine with 30 rounds, on a three-round burst, ready to fire    down
    Still against the wall, I grab my M-4, spray and watch all the bodies hit the floor
    I bet you never stop-loss nobody no more.”

“The chain of command has a legal obligation to the citizens of the United States to investigate and deal fairly with SPC Hall’s alleged misconduct,” Kevin Larson, a spokesman at Fort Stewart, said in an e-mail. “Anything less would be irresponsible to our citizens and soldiers.”

James Klimaski, a Washington-based lawyer, said that Iraq Veterans Against the War, an anti-war group to which Hall belongs, is trying to raise enough money for Hall to hire him as his civilian attorney. While Hall is jailed, his unit has deployed to Iraq without him, according to Klimaski.

Hall’s song is just a song and should not be taken literally, the lawyer said.

“Listen to rap songs,” Klimaski said. “I mean there are a whole bunch of rap songs talking about killing people all the time. Nobody gets killed from them.”

Klimaski also downplayed the allegations that Hall made additional threats.

“The problem with threats is they can’t be contingent,” he said. “ ‘I will do this if ...’ Well that’s not a threat because if ‘if’ doesn’t happen, then there’s no threat. Like, let’s say, ‘I’m going to shoot the battalion commander if I’m deployed.’ Well he’s not been deployed, so he’s not going to shoot the battalion commander, so there’s no threat.”

Klimaski also said the definition of rampage means to run around like a crazy person. “That’s not a threat,” he said.

Hall’s arrest came a little more than a month after Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. Afterward, the military and law enforcement services were criticized for failing to heed what many said were signs that Hasan might commit violence. Among the signs were online postings sympathizing with Muslim suicide bombers and his vocal assertions that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wars against Islam.

Klimaski added that those who are a true threat typically don’t advertise their intentions.

“Maj. Hasan didn’t run around and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to blow people away at the hospital, or the infirmary today.’ Or the bomber going into Detroit says, ‘Oh, I should tell everyone I’m on this plane and blow the plane up,’” he said.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67068

See the charge sheet:  http://www.stripes.com/10/jan10/hall_charges.pdf

 Spc. Marc Hall's Web site. (CAUTION: The song, the lyrics of which may be considered offensive, will begin playing when the site is accessed.)  http://marcwatercus.com/stoploss.html
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« Reply #1029 on: January 06, 2010, 06:25:12 PM »

Report: Homegrown terror suspects in US mostly young men who plan violence overseas
HOMEGROWN TERROR

Chart shows demographics of American Muslims accused of acts of terror since Sept. 11, 2001. (A. Baseden, AP / January 6, 2010)

RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writer

January 6, 2010 | 1:29 p.m.



A new study on homegrown terror found that most American Muslims who planned violent attacks in since 2001 were young, male U.S. citizens who became radical as part of a group.

Still, researchers seeking lessons on preventing extremism found no definitive pattern of how the suspects turned to violence and no geographic center of radicalization in the U.S.

Experts from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill tallied homegrown terror cases since the Sept. 11 attacks and found 139 American Muslims had been publicly accused of planning or carrying out violence motivated by extremism.

All but one of the suspects were male and most were under age 30. Most were U.S.-born, naturalized citizens or legal residents of the country. Although Arabs formed the largest group of suspects, the accused were almost evenly divided in terms of ethnicity, including African-Americans, South Asians, Somalis and whites. About a third were converts to Islam.

Funded by the National Institute of Justice, a division of the U.S. Justice Department, researchers sought to learn why American Muslims seem less prone to extremism than Muslims in Western Europe, where radicals preach openly and children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants often feel as alienated from broader society as their parents did.

The report's authors analyzed public records of terror cases, reviewed efforts by American Muslim leaders to fight extremism, and interviewed more than 120 Muslims in Houston; Seattle; Buffalo, N.Y.; and around Raleigh and Durham in North Carolina. Each of the four areas had some cases of alleged radicalization. U.S. Muslims accused of sending money to overseas terrorist groups were not part of the study.

Researchers found the largest number of homegrown terror cases occurred last year, with a total of 41 suspects, although the report's authors say it's too early to know if that is an aberration or a trend. The 2009 increase is partly due to the cases of young Somali-Americans in Minneapolis believed to have joined Somalia's al-Shabab jihadist, or holy war, movement.

The cases also include Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged with the Fort Hood mass shooting last November, and the five young men from Virginia who were recently arrested in Pakistan, allegedly on their way to get terrorist training and join the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The study found that the planned targets of most violent plots were overseas. Seventy percent of the conspiracies were pre-empted by law enforcement well before anyone was hurt.

Maria Haberfeld, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies policing and counterterrorism, called terrorism "a fluid and evolving phenomenon" and said she wasn't surprised that no clear pattern of radicalization emerged, especially from the report's small sample.

"When you look at various individuals who were involved more recently in terrorist attacks, everybody came from a different background, whether economically or educationally. Everybody has some issue, but we're not sure what that issue was. Mental illness? Ideology? Some temporary frame of mind?" she said. "It's very situational. Something triggers certain sentiments and reactions that there is no way we could have predicted."

Muqtedar Khan, a University of Delaware political scientist, said "a small minority of radicalization" has occurred within the American Muslim community, but said it's not clear why.

Anger over U.S. foreign policy is generally considered a factor, as is a feeling of alienation due to intense suspicion of Muslims in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 strikes.

The study was released amid the uproar over national security following the attempt by a Nigerian to allegedly destroy a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.

The report, called "Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans," credited U.S. Muslim leaders with vigorously monitoring their communities for potential threats. The study's authors urged civil authorities to offer more support for projects, such as Muslim youth groups, that reinforce the message that extremism is contrary to Islam.

Khan said the American Muslim community has developed good relationships with law enforcement, even with increased tensions in the last year over the FBI's use of confidential informants in mosques. The community has driven radical speakers from mosques and national organizations, Khan said. But he said, "people don't have to go to mosques to get radicalized" and the American Muslim community isn't equipped right now to counter extreme messages over the Internet and through the media.

____

http://www.sanford.duke.edu/news/Schanzer_Kurzman_Moosa_Anti-Terror_Lessons.pdf


COMMENTS (1) | Add Comment

Comments:

One of the authors of this study is Muslim Ebrahim E.I. Moosa, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke. How convenient. AP left out that little fact. How stupid do they think we are?

LaLydia (01/06/2010, 8:12 AM )
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« Reply #1030 on: January 06, 2010, 06:31:49 PM »

Study: Most homegrown terrorists are U.S. citizens

Updated 6h 51m ago

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — A study released Wednesday of American Muslims and homegrown terror found that most of the publicly known cases since the Sept. 11 attacks involved young men who were U.S.-born or naturalized citizens. More than half of the suspects were radicalized as part of a group.

The analysis by researchers from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found the accused were almost evenly divided in terms of ethnicity.

Although Arabs formed the largest group of suspects, their numbers were only slightly higher than African-Americans, South Asians, Somalis and whites. About a third were converts to Islam.

The statistics were part of a report, "Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans," that aimed to learn why American Muslims seem less prone to extremism than Muslims in Europe and elsewhere.

The researchers concluded that American Muslim self-policing has helped stem radicalization.

Using a broad definition of homegrown terror, the report identified 139 American Muslims who were accused in the last eight years of planning or carrying out violent attacks motivated by extremism. The cases include Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged with the Fort Hood mass shooting last November, and the five young men from Virginia who were recently arrested in Pakistan, allegedly on their way to get terrorist training and join the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The largest number of cases by far occurred last year, with a total of 41 suspects, although researchers say it's too early to know if that is an aberration or a trend. The 2009 increase is partly due to the cases of young Somali-Americans in Minneapolis believed to have joined Somalia's al-Shabab jihadist, or holy war, movement, the report's authors said. U.S. Muslims accused of sending money to overseas terrorist groups were not part of the study.

Even with the common threads among the cases, researchers said they found no definitive pattern of how the accused were radicalized and no geographic center of extremism in the U.S.

In addition to reviewing criminal cases, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with more than 120 American Muslims in Houston; Seattle; Buffalo; and around Raleigh and Durham in North Carolina. Each of the four areas had some cases of alleged radicalization.

The study found that the planned targets of most of the violent plots were overseas. Seventy percent of the conspiracies were pre-empted by law enforcement well before anyone was hurt.

All but one of the suspects were male and most were under age 30. Most were U.S.-born, naturalized citizens or legal residents of the country.

The report urges civil authorities to increase their support for American Muslims who are starting youth groups, building Islamic schools and starting other projects that reinforce the message that extremism is contrary to Islam. The study was funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-01-06-terror-danger-study_N.htm
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« Reply #1031 on: January 06, 2010, 07:46:59 PM »

Connecting the Dots on Intelligence Reform
http://www.cfr.org/publication/21126/connecting_the_dots_on_intelligence_reform.html
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« Reply #1032 on: January 07, 2010, 12:01:20 PM »

BAMC blocks visit to Fort Hood shootings suspect

© 2010 The Associated Press
Jan. 7, 2010, 9:50AM

KILLEEN, Texas — An unarmed man falsely claiming to be an attorney and a doctor was blocked from visiting the officer charged in the Fort Hood shootings.

Brooke Army Medical Center spokesman Dewey Mitchell says the man asked security at the hospital in San Antonio to escort him to Maj. Nidal Hasan.

Mitchell says the visitor claimed to be Hasan attorney John Galligan, but security personnel know the lawyer. The man, whose name wasn't released, then said he was a doctor.

The man was removed Wednesday and investigators spoke to the him, but no charges were filed. Mitchell says the man was not considered a threat.

Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the Nov. 5 shootings. The Army psychiatrist was wounded and is undergoing rehabilitation for paralysis.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6803280.html
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« Reply #1033 on: January 07, 2010, 12:05:43 PM »

Plane-Bomb Suspect May Have Met With Radical Cleric in Yemen

By MARGARET COKER

SAN'A, Yemen -- Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, alleged to have tried to bring down a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, met al Qaeda elements in Yemen, and may have also met a radical U.S.-born Islamic preacher, a focus of past U.S. counterterrorist probes, according to a high-ranking Yemeni official.

Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al Alimi, speaking to a news conference in the capital San'a, said Mr. Abdulmutallab may have met Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen's southern Shabwa province, after Mr. Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian citizen, slipped out of San'a in late September, where he had been studying. Shabwa is one of at least three provinces known to be al Qaeda strongholds in Yemen.
[Yemen] Associated Press

"There is no doubt he met with al Qaeda elements in Shabwa, including likely with Awlaki," Mr. Alimi said, citing local intelligence investigations into the whereabouts of Mr. Abdulmutallab before he left Yemen on Dec. 4.

Mr. Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate a chemical explosive on Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, but the plane landed safely after crew and passengers overpowered him.

Mr. Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to Yemeni parents, and has been a person of interest for antiterror investigators in the Yemeni government, especially after being linked to U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hassan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter, according to a Yemeni official familiar with the situation.

Yemeni officials haven't presented any specific evidence linking Mr. Awlaki operationally to the planning and execution of the attempted plane bombing or the Fort Hood shooting. But they now say they consider him a significant security risk.

"He's the most dangerous man in Yemen," according to a Yemeni official familiar with the country's counterterrorism operations. "He's intelligent, sophisticated and very charismatic. He can sell anything to anyone, and right now he's selling jihad."

People close to Mr. Awlaki deny that he is a member of al Qaeda and say that he doesn't condone violence against civilians, and they deny any alleged links between him and Mr. Abdulmutallab's failed attack.

Mr. Awlaki's whereabouts aren't known. He was thought to be present in a house on Dec. 24, along with three of the top leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni-based chapter is called, during a lethal Yemeni military attack against the home, according to Yemeni officials.

Mr. Alimi, the deputy prime minister, said that the same house may have been where Mr. Abdulmutallab met with al Qaeda leaders earlier in the fall.

The Yemeni government has not confirmed whether Mr. Awlaki was killed in the strike. The cleric's family members, speaking to Yemeni media, insist that he is still alive.

Mr. Alimi told the news conference on Thursday that Mr. Abdulmutallab had no links with the militant group when he first came to Yemen in 2004 and 2005 to study Arabic.

Mr. Alimi said the man was radicalized during his time in the U.K., where he had studied between his two stints in Yemen. He returned to Yemen in Aug. 2009, after a stint studying in Dubai.

On Tuesday, Home Secretary Alan Johnson told parliament that Mr. Abdulmutallab's radicalization happened after he left London in 2008, where he had been a student, and Prime Minster Gordon Brown said over the weekend the Nigerian had first made contact with al Qaeda in Yemen.

Further muddying the waters, Mr. Alimi, in his press conference Thursday, said he didn't believe that Mr. Abdulmutallab received weapons or explosive training in Yemen, as the Nigerian has told U.S. investigators. Instead, Mr. Alimi said he picked up the bomb and learned how to use it in Nigeria.

Mr. Abdulmutallab spent time in Ethiopia and Ghana before returning to Lagos, Nigeria, briefly, in order to board a flight to Amsterdam, connecting to the U.S.-bound flight he allegedly tried to bring down.

Nigerian officials angrily denied Mr. Alimi's claim, and said the Nigerian government may say more later Thursday, when more details emerge of the Yemeni government's accusations.
—Sarah Childress in Abuja, Nigeria, and Alistair MacDonald in London contributed to this article.

Write to Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126286293183119465.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
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« Reply #1034 on: January 07, 2010, 12:24:03 PM »


Humam Khalil Muhammed al Balawi, identified as suicide bomber who killed seven C.I.A. agents and his handler at Forward Operating Base Chapman near Khost city, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30, 2009


CIA suicide bomber 'worked with bin Laden allies'


The suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan could have been planned by one of Osama bin Laden's closest allies, according to US intelligence sources.
 

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 12:54AM GMT 07 Jan 2010

They believe that the Haqqani network, which controls the area around Khost where the bombing occurred on Dec 30, authorised if not aided the Jordanian double agent who carried out the deadliest attack on the US spy agency for 30 years.

Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA unit tracking bin Laden, said: "There is no way this operation would have occurred in Khost without the knowledge and active support of Jalaluddin Haqqani and/or his son.
 
"They and their organisation own the area and nothing occurs that would impact their tribe or its allies without their knowledge or OK.

Both men, moreover, would be delighted to help bin Laden in any way they can."

During the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion, the Haqqanis were US allies. Now led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the clan now rivals the Taliban and al-Qaeda as a threat to US forces in Afghanistan.

The network's base lies across the border in the Pakistani tribal province of North Waziristan, where the CIA has carried out four drone attacks since its men were killed. Pakistani officials said 11 suspected terrorists, including two Arabs, had been killed in two strikes on a training camp in the Datta Khel region on Wednesday.

Reports in the US have speculated that the al-Qaeda leadership itself was behind the attack on the CIA, though the terrorist group has not associated itself with the bombing.

The Pakistani Taliban has however claimed responsibility, though it would be the time it had carried out such an audacious attack inside Afghanistan. Reports from Jordan have supported this theory, saying that the suspect, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, travelled to Pakistan after arriving in Afghanistan.

The 32-year-old doctor set up the meeting by promising his Jordanian handler, who also died in the attack, information on the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two in al-Qaeda.

The promise of reliable data after eight years of futile searches lured several senior CIA officers, including the deputy in Afghanistan and the station officer at Camp Chapman.

For reasons that have not been made clear, the bomber was not subjected to even a rudimentary security check, and detonated powerful explosives soon after the meeting started, according to officials who asked to remain anonymous.

Al-Balawi was arrested in late 2008 in Jordan after months of incendiary contributions to jihadist websites. He was jailed for three days and soon secretly left his native Jordan for Afghanistan, leading Jordanian intelligence to believe that he had agreed to take on the mission against al-Qaeda.

Once in Afghanistan, al-Balawi provided valuable intelligence information that helped foil al-Qaeda terror plots on his homeland, according to Jordanian officials.

A former senior US intelligence official said al-Balawi had provided high-quality intelligence that established his credibility.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6944280/CIA-suicide-bomber-worked-with-bin-Laden-allies.html
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« Reply #1035 on: January 07, 2010, 01:14:46 PM »

Army evaluating Hasan's mental health

Posted On: Thursday, Jan. 7 2010 05:08 AM   Bookmark and Share
By Jade Ortego
Killeen Daily Herald

Officials at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio named on Wednesday the three medical professionals who will evaluate Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's mental health.

The sanity board will determine if Hasan, accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others during a Nov. 5 shooting at Fort Hood, is mentally competent to stand trial.

Hasan's attorney, John P. Galligan, said that the board intends to review documents until Feb. 7 and then evaluate his client by the end of February. He believes the appointment of the sanity board was done too quickly because the defense team isn't yet complete, and he hasn't received full discovery, he said.

"They're living in a dream world. This is another example of the Army rushing to get this case done," he said.

The names of the board members were not released.

http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=38229
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« Reply #1036 on: January 07, 2010, 01:19:44 PM »

Hasan family member joins defense team: Fort Sam Houston locked down after man attempts unauthorized contact

by Paul A. Romer
Published: January 7, 2010

BELTON - Two unusual developments regarding accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan happened Wednesday as defense attorney John Galligan announced a Hasan family member was added to the defense team and Fort Sam Houston, where Hasan is being detained, was locked down for about three hours after an unauthorized person tried to gain access to the prisoner.

Galligan would not name the family member or give his exact relation to Hasan. In November, the Washington Post reported that Hasan has two brothers: Eyad, a Virginia businessman, and Anas, a lawyer in Jerusalem.

Galligan confirmed that Wednesday's lockdown from about 9 a.m. to noon had nothing to do with any member of his defense team.

http://www.tdtnews.com/story/2010/01/07/63341/
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« Reply #1037 on: January 07, 2010, 01:26:51 PM »

INTERVIEW
Last updated: 11:23:42 AM GMT(+03) Wednesday, 06, January, 2010
 
Sheikh Anwar Aulaqi
Suspected & Wanted Terrorist

        
FOR THE YEMEN POST

Anwar Aulaqi tells details of his relationship with Nidal Hasan, saying that the first letter he received, was asking about the religious rule of killing a Muslim soldier who serves in the U.S. Army.
After the events of September 11, 2001, Nidal Hasan was planning and preparing for the biggest operation inside the U.S., which was carried out in the fifth of last November, killing 13 officers and soldiers, and wounding more than thirty others. Four months before Major Nidal implemented his operation, he was in contact with Anwar Aulaqi, a Yemeni-American cleric, asking him about the legitimacy of his operation and about his role as a Muslim person in the U.S. military.
Aulaqi’s tapes sales in the U.S. and Western countries have exceeded, five million tapes, according to the distribution company. It added that he kept addressing the audience in the West, via his website and he opened rooms for presenting sermons and answering direct questions. Below is the interview.
Sheikh Anwar, what is your relationship with Nidal, and when did it start?
Brother Nidal, I ask Allah to protect him, was praying in my Mosque, when I was the cleric of Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center.

When was the first meeting between the both of you?
Some nine years ago when I was the cleric of Dar Al-Hijra in Washington, DC, which is the largest Islamic center in America.

Reports revealed that your relations were more than that?
Brother Nidal was also contacting me via e-mail over the past year.

When did Nidal’s first email contact start?
The first message I received from him was on 17, December 2008.

Who began contacting the other, you or him?
He started contacting me.

What was he looking for?
He was asking whether killing American officers and soldiers is legitimate or not.

He asked you nearly a year before implementing the operation?
Yes, I am surprised where were the U.S. security agencies, which claimed one day that they are able to read cars and vehicles plate’s numbers from up in space, anywhere in the world.

What did he want from you overall?
His messages were asking about the Islamic rule of killing a Muslim soldier, who served in the U.S. Army.
And in other letters he explained his view of killing Israeli civilians and was in favor of this, he mentioned the legal and factual justifications for targeting Jews with rockets. Later, there were some of his letters that asked for a way he can transfer some funds to us, to contribute on charity works.

There are other signs of your relation with him like how you blessed his attack three days after he implemented the operation?
The operation done by Hasan was heroic, and I tried to articulate my opinion on what happened because many of the Islamic organizations and preachers in the West condemned the operation.

Why did you bless Hasan’s work?
Because the goal was targeted by him, and it was a military target inside the United States, there is no dispute about it. Also, those are not ordinary soldiers, but they were equipped and prepared to start fighting and killing the vulnerable Muslims and commit crimes in Afghanistan.
How can I and other preachers remain silent after hearing some of the forensic condemnation of his operation? If the ‘’controversial issue’’ is the operations that kill non-combatants; now by which argument they oppose the operation, which is purely against a military target.

How can you support what he has done, he betrayed his homeland the U.S?
More importantly than that, he does not betray his religion. “Working in the U.S. military to fight Muslims is a betrayal to Islam’’. ‘’America today is the Pharaoh of yesterday, it is the enemy of Islam’’. A Muslim is not permitted to work in the U.S. military, unless he intends to follow the footsteps of our brother Nidal. Allegiance in Islam is to God (Allah), His Messenger (PBUH) and the faithful believers, not for a handful of land and dust they call ‘’homeland’’. An American- Muslim’s loyalty is to the Muslim nation, not for America. Hasan has proved that, through his blessed operation; may God richly reward him.

Are you directly related to the incident?
I did not advise Hasan, but he was recruited by the U.S. by its crimes and its injustice; this is what America does not want to admit. Yes, I might have a role in the “intellectual guidance’’ to him, but not more than that.
 

YEMEN POST STAFF
http://yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=1750&MainCat=4
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« Reply #1038 on: January 07, 2010, 01:43:18 PM »

Terror probe will 'shock' Americans: White House

STEPHEN COLLINSON
January 8, 2010 - 5:34AM

The White House warned Americans to brace for a "certain shock" on Thursday when it releases a first probe into intelligence failures exposed by the Christmas attack on a US airliner carrying 290 people.

New details about the thwarted bombing of a Northwest jet will follow revelations from Yemen that a young Nigerian man charged with carrying out the plot met a radical Muslim cleric Washington accuses of instigating terrorism.

President Barack Obama, who has complained about a disastrous intelligence "screw-up", will make a fresh statement Thursday, as his administration fights claims it botched the initial response to the attempted suicide bombing.

His national security advisor James Jones prepared public opinion for the report by warning Americans would feel a "certain shock" when they read about systemic failures in intelligence operations designed to keep them safe.

Obama "is legitimately and correctly alarmed that things that were available, bits of information that were available, patterns of behavior that were available, were not acted on," Jones told USA Today.

Noting the failed bid to destroy the jet, and the shooting rampage which killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in November by a Muslim army psychiatrist, Jones said clues about extremist attacks had now been missed twice.

"That's two strikes," Jones said, adding that the president "certainly doesn't want that third strike, and neither does anybody else."

A furious Obama has ordered swift government reviews into the attack on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, centering on existing terrorist watch lists and on airline security and screening.

He was originally scheduled to speak at about 1 pm (1800 GMT) but the appearance was delayed by two hours after it emerged he would hold a private Oval Office meeting with former president Bill Clinton.

On Tuesday, Obama said the review showed US intelligence agencies missed a series of red flags related to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who is accused of trying to destroy the jet with explosives sewn into his underwear.

New details meanwhile began to emerge of the planning of the airliner plot, blamed by the United States on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen.

The Arab country's Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Affairs, Rashad al-Aleemi, said Abdulmutallab had met Anwar al-Awlaqi, a US-Yemeni cleric also linked to the Fort Hood massacre.

The United States has accused Awlaqi of terrorist links and said that Nidal Hasan, the accused in the November military base shootings in Texas that killed 13 people, had also been in contact with the cleric.

Aleemi said that Abdulmutallab may also have been recruited by Al-Qaeda while at university in London.

"When he went to Britain, it seems that he was recruited by (Islamist) militant groups," Aleemi said, adding that Abdulmutallab arrived in Yemen "after he had been recruited by Al-Qaeda."

Sharpening the US conundrum in a widening front on the US anti-terror fight, Aleemi also warned that American military intervention in Yemen could backfire and strengthen jihadists.

Nigeria, smarting from US criticisms of its aviation security procedures, offered to provide Washington's investigators images of Adbulmutallab going through security checks at Lagos airport on December 24 before flying to Amsterdam.

Justice Minister Michael Aondoaaka told reporters that the images would prove that security staff had done their job.

"We have visual information... (that shows) our security agents did what they were supposed to do," the minister told journalists.

Nigeria has demanded it be removed from a US aviation watchlist of 14 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, introduced after a security review ordered by Obama.

"Nigeria is not a terrorist country. Nigeria will not, cannot be on the list of countries of interest because we have a track record as a peacekeeper," added the minister," Aondoaaka said.

Abdulmutallab was indicted on six counts Wednesday by a US grand jury for attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction aboard a US plane and could face life imprisonment.

In a highly unusual public rebuke of the US spy community on Tuesday, Obama said errors by intelligence agencies before the attack were "not acceptable."

In private, he was even more vociferous, telling spy chiefs in a meeting in the White House Situation Room: "this was a screw-up that could have been disastrous," an official said, on condition of anonymity.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/terror-probe-will-shock-americans-white-house-20100107-lwzr.html
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« Reply #1039 on: January 07, 2010, 05:44:57 PM »

Obama rues 'intelligence failure'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8447346.stm

President Barack Obama says the US failed to "connect and understand" intelligence it had prior to the failed Christmas Day airline bomb attack.

In a national address, Mr Obama said he was ordering an immediate strengthening of "watch lists" for terror suspects.

He said it was not a failure of a single individual, but rather a "systemic failure" across agencies.

Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had tried to detonate explosives on a flight to Detroit.

President Obama said the US government had the relevant information to prevent an attack "scattered around the system".

But he said the failure to follow up on the information, coupled with a failure of analysis, had left the US exposed.

   
US PLANE 'PLOT' REPORTS

Summary of White House security review [400 KB]
President's directive on corrective actions [200 KB]
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He said he was ordering an immediate strengthening of the terrorist watch list, information on security risks would be distributed more widely, and analysis of that information would be improved.

"At this stage in the review process it appears that this incident was the fault a single individual or organisation but but rather a systemic failure across organisations and agencies," he said.

"I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from it and correcting these mistakes to make us safer. For ultimately the buck stops with me.

"As president I have a solemn responsibility to protect out nation and our people and when the system fails it is my responsibility," he added.

Mr Abdulmutallab's name was on a US database of about 550,000 suspected terrorists.

However, it was not on a list that would have subjected him to additional security screening or kept him from boarding the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.


Video: President Obama address in full
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8447373.stm

Summary of White House security review [400 KB]Summary of White House security review [400 KB]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/07_01_10_summary_of_wh_review.pdf

President's directive on corrective actions [200 KB]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/07_01_10_potus_directive_corrective_actions.pdf
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