Nigerian bomber warns: I’m the first of many
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who set himself alight in a packed Airbus approaching Detroit on Christmas Day, bought his one-way ticket from a KLM office in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, on December 16.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a terrorist cell led by a former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden, issued a statement saying that the failed attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a response to American-backed airstrikes on the group in Yemen this month. According to Times, Abdulmutallab has indicated that his attack was planned well before these latest air raids.
Abdulmutallab, an engineering graduate, was transferred yesterday from hospital in Detroit to a federal prison in Milan, Michigan, where agents questioning him said he told them that he was one of many bombers being groomed by the Yemeni al-Qaeda affiliate to attack American-bound aircraft, according to ABC News.
A US military effort to deny al-Qaeda a stronghold in Yemen has been under way for at least a year. The Yemeni authorities confirmed yesterday that Abdulmutallab had been in the country since August.
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