Terrorist Attack Over Detroit Averted on Christmas Day

A Christmas Day terrorist outrage was averted when a Nigerian man attempted to ignite an explosive device on a Northwest Airlines Flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The would-be terrorist was subdued by passengers and crew.

The man was identified as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23 year old Nigerian with connections to Al Qaeda. He is said to be an engineering student at University College London. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab apparently flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam where he transferred to the flight to Detroit. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab attempted to ignite an explosive device strapped to his leg by injecting a liquid into it. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was badly burned and two of the passengers were injured during the subsequent struggle. One passenger, Jasper Schruinga, a Dutch citizen, played a crucial and heroic role in subduing the would-be terrorist.

He airliner was a Northwest Airlines flight 253, was an Airbus 330 carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew. Had Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab succeeded, the resulting carnage would have entered the annals of terrorist outrages of the current decade, made even crueler for taking place on Christianity's holiest day.

A number of questions remain. There have been some reports that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was on the no fly list. Therefore, while it may be understandable how he boarded a plane originating from Lagos, Nigeria, where security is said to be lax, it is less clear how Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab boarded Northwest Airlines flight 253 in Amsterdam without being flagged.

There is also some question of the direct connection Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's attempted murder of 289 people on the Northwest flight with Al Qaeda. One report suggests that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was working alone. Another report suggested that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was provided the explosive device by Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

The attempted terrorist attack in the skies over Detroit has a resemblance to an attempt to blow up an airliner in 2001 by Richard Reid, the infamous "shoe bomber."

The attempted terrorist attack illustrates another, more sobering reality of the War on Terror. Western security agencies must succeed every time a terrorist attack is attempted in detecting and thwarting it. The terrorists only have to succeed once for hundreds, perhaps thousands to die and for Al Qaeda to score another triumph in its jihad against civilization, As of this writing, it looks like that 289 people were only spared because of the failure of the device strapped to Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab's leg to go off and not through any success of any intelligence or law enforcement agency.

The attempted take down of Northwest Airlines flight 253 in the skies over Detroit suggest another sobering truth. A purely defensive, law enforcement oriented strategy will not work in the War on Terror. Military campaigns in places like Afghanistan, Yemen, and even Iraq are vital to keep the terrorists themselves on the defensive, and to eventually hunt them down and kill them. The long war may be wearying to the public, and especially to politicians who might clamor to "bring the troops home" before their job is done. But the alternative is not peace, but more terror and more deaths of innocent civilians.

Source: British student held over alleged airline bomb attempt, Helen Carter, UK Guardian, December 26th, 2009