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There are a lot of unconfirmed reports about a US airliner that was reportedly the subject of an attempted terror attack. It sounds like a Richard Reid-type situation, where a Nigerian national tried to ignite some kind of explosive device on Northwest flight 253, headed from Amsterdam to Detroit, MI (it originated from Lagos, Nigeria). The individual was taken from the plane after it landed safely in Detroit earlier today.
The Wall Street Journal names the attempted attacker as Abdul Mudallad, age 23.
Mr. Mudallad suffered 3rd-degree burns when the device detonated on approach to Detroit, according to Mr. King. He said none of the other passengers was seriously injured. The man told investigators that he was given the device by al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, where he was also given instructions on how to detonate it, the U.S. official said.
“This guy claims he is tied to al Qaeda, spefically in Yemen,” the official said. “He claims he was on orders from al Qaeda in Yemen.”
The President has been briefed on the incident.
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These inept terrorists are giving Al Qaeda a bad name. I’m no longer sufficiently terrified…
Ah, but I’ll bet our legislators will be sufficiently terrified to make sure those certain provisions of the Patriot Act don’t expire Dec 31st.
Too late–Patriot Act was renewed to March 1 in the Defense Appropriations Bill which passed last week.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I predict that shortly, approximately 30 Yemeni’s will die in an airstrike that will also take out the Al Qaeda numbers two and three.
laurastrand
Um… shouldn’t we be using extended classification methods to avoid confusion? Say a decimal followed by 3 significant places? With AQ#2.001 through AQ#2.999 to assasinate that ought to give us significant leeway… well, at least until we run into the AQ#2.1k crisis…
I said “certain provisions” and I was referring to the ones covered in this article. In all the “flurry of activity” on “health care reform,” did they manage to take action on these specific provisions? I would appreciate knowing.