The Christmas Day Bomber of 2009

The Christmas Day Bomber of 2009

On 25 December 2009, the Christmas day, a man of Nigerian descend tried to bomb an airplane igniting an explosive gadget in a transatlantic Northwest Airline flight when the airplane was almost landing in Detroit (Dammer & Albanese, 2010). The United States of America believed that this act was an attempted act of terror against the U.S. The U.S. stated that the device was made from a mixture of liquid and powder. Passengers on the plane described the incident by stating that they heard several pops that sounded like firecrackers.

On that day, Umar had a Nigerian passport and a valid U.S tourist visa. He purchased a ticket using his cash in Ghana on 16th December. Passengers named Kurt and another one called Lori Haskell informed the Detroit News that they saw a very smartly dressed man who was possibly from the Indian descent helping a passenger board onto the plane. They identified the man who was being helped to be Umar and stated that he did not have a passport and that he posed as a refugee from Sudan (Seib & Janbek, 2011).

Umar spent about twenty minutes in the bathroom when the plane was almost in Detroit. According to reports, Umar covered himself with a blanket before he went back to his seat, in the plane (Schmitt, Arimatsu, & McCormack, 2011). After Umar was back in his seat, passengers heard popping sounds that was followed by a foul smell. Moments after that, Umar’s foot was on fire similarly to the wall of the plane where he was seated. Jasper Schuringer who is a Dutch film director jumped and subdued Umar as the flight attendants used fire extinguishers to stop the flames (Hess & Orthmann, 2011).

After the incident, Umar Farouk was taken to the plane’s cabin on the front of the plane. He did not have his trousers and his legs had burns. Umar Farouk admitted that he had an explosive gadget in his pocket when a flight attendant asked him what he had. The device had also been sewn on his pants and had an explosive powder known as PETN. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab acknowledged that he manufactured the explosive by mixing the PETN powder, TATP liquid and other ingredients (Sinclair & Antonius, 2012).

After he had come out of the plane and taken into custody, Umar told the security officials that he was acting on the direction of al-Qaida. He stated that he got the device from Yemen. Umar told the FBI agents that he got training from al-Qaeda linked terrorists who were based in Yemen (Bennett, 2011).Despite the heavy security checks that are done in airports, it was unclear how the man was able to put the explosive onboard without being noticed.

The man who tried to detonate the explosive was found to be Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who was 23 years of age at that time. The plane was a 330 passenger airbus wide body that had 278 passengers onboard (Pendleton, 2010). Despite the fact that it was stated that the person planned to bomb the plane, senior administration officials of the U.S stated that they were not sure whether Umar had the capability to bomb the plane. The security officials were trying to get information of the exact thing Umar had (Dammer & Albanese, 2010).

The U.S security officials pointed out that Umar stated that he had the explosive powder tied on one of his legs and that he mixed the powder with a mixture of chemicals that he had on a syringe (Oleszek, 2011). When carrying out investigations, an unnamed federal counterterrorism security official stated that Umar had been included in the U.S. government law enforcement intelligence database as one of the wanted criminals but it was not clear the extremist group that he belonged to or the individuals he was working for (Sinclair & Antonius, 2012).

Umar Farouk was listed in the U.S terrorism database in November 2009 after his father had told the State Department officials that he suspected and was worried about the radical beliefs and the extremist connections that his son had adopted (Seib & Janbek, 2011). His father, who is a banker in Nigeria, reported his worries at the U.S embassy in Nigeria. On the eventful day, Umar ignited an explosive device that set a part of his pants and part of the airplane on fire when the plane was preparing to land in Detroit (Seib & Janbek, 2011).

The plane had come from Amsterdam carrying travelers who boarded from Nigeria. Umar had boarded the Plane from Nigeria and had only taken a break in Amsterdam before boarding again to Detroit. After being interrogated, Abdulmutallab was taken to hospital where he was treated of the burns he got from the fire in the plane. Two days later, he was discharged from the hospital and taken to Federal Correctional Institution in Michigan where he was held throughout the court proceedings (Vincent 2012).

Following that incident, the U.S. took several security measures. For instance, The Transport Security Administration required passengers to remain on their seats for the whole of the last hour and would not be allowed an access to carry-on-baggage or any other item with them. Passengers travelling internationally experienced increased screening at airport gates as well as on their luggage whether large or small. Air attendants informed the passengers of the new regulations (Kleinig, Mameli, Miller, Salane & Schwartz, 2011).

After the incident occurred, security officials interrogated the man wanting to know whether he understood what he was trying to do, where he had obtained the explosive, the extremist group he belonged to and what his intent was. President Barrack Obama was kept aware of the events as they happened after the plane had landed. He was spending the day with his family and friends in a Hawaiian beach house. After the event, he called for a consultation meeting where he was updated regarding the events (Pendleton, 2010).

John O. Brennan, who was the counterterrorism director arranged for an interagency meeting in the afternoon on that day in order to discuss the information that had been obtained from that incident and discuss further arrangements to be taken as precautions for any attack (Oleszek, 2011). Because of the incident, the Transportation Security Administration made security processes tight in all the airports in the USA. Plainclothes behavioral detection specialists including bomb-sniffing dog teams were increased (Hess & Orthmann, 2011).

The department of homeland security pointed out that it was not planning to increase the nation’s threat level that had been placed at orange since the year 2006 (Vincent, p. 2012). The first announcement that was made after the incident by Janet Napolitano who was the US Director of Homeland Security that was responsible for ensuring the security of US citizens from any terrorist attack stated that the US Homeland Security worked effectively (Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee, 2012).

However, she retracted her announcement and stated that there had been foremost breakdowns in the security protocol systems that allowed an unidentified person to access the various layers of security checks (Frank Bolz, Dudonis, & Schulz, 2011). The second response announced by the U.S Homeland Security was that Abdulmutallab’s intent was not known because there was not enough technology to detect what he was carrying. It was also added that if whole-body scanners and explosive scanners had been provided, the incident would not have occurred.

On that day, investigators on both sides, Detroit and Amsterdam, were investigating the background of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Scotland Yard and the MI5 wanted to find out how he was radicalized and the people who radicalized him (Bennett, 2011). They also wanted to find out whether Umar had accomplices, in the U.S, UK or the Arabian Peninsula. During the investigations, the security personnel found out that Umar had dropped out of a business course that he was undertaking on a postgraduate basis in Dubai (Bennett, 2011).

He told his family that he travelled to Yemen to study Islam. This is when he cut his contact with his family. President Barrack Obama ordered a review of the US security measures as politicians demanded an answer regarding how Umar had managed to get into the plane after his father had expressed concerns in Nigeria about his son’s behavior and the safety risk he posed (Oleszek, 2011).

Other issues that the investigations done on Umar revealed include the fact that Al-Qaida activists had recorded in a video information stating that a bomb would hit the enemies of God. It was also revealed that Abdulmutallab had attended an elite British curriculum boarding school in Togo and that he had expressed sympathy for the Taliban group after the September attack that happened in 2001. The civil aviation authority of Nigeria stated that Umar had bought his ticked from Lagos to Detroit through Amsterdam at KLM in Accra, Ghana (Dammer & Albanese, 2010).

It was also revealed that Umar was given a two-year U.S tourist visa in London, in June 2008 but had not acted in ways that would raise suspicion before boarding the plane (Pendleton, 2010). The interrogations also found that the US authorities found the security at Lagos to be effective and adequate. Aviation officials also indicated that scanners that are designed to perform checks on explosive devices instead of metal are in place but are never put into widespread use. Therefore, the security checks that were done on that day did not exactly show how Umar got onboard with the explosive.

In conclusion, the Christmas Day Bomber of 2009 represents a day when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was planning to bring down a plane he boarded for Detroit from Amsterdam. However, his plan did work as he intended because the explosive did not explode. The airplane attendants and the passengers helped contain the incident. The U.S Homeland Security, the FBI, the Scotland Yard and the MI5 among other security agencies conducted investigations into the planned attack. Reports revealed that Umar was acting on a directive from Al-Qaida and that his planned attack was not noticed because of security check systems that had inferior technological applications.

References

Bennett, W. J. (2011). The Fight of Our Lives: Knowing the Enemy, Speaking the Truth, and Choosing to Win the War Against Radical Islam. New York: Thomas Nelson Inc.

Dammer, H. R., & Albanese, J. S. (2010). Comparative Criminal Justice Systems. New York: Cengage Learning.

Frank Bolz, J., Dudonis, K. J., & Schulz, D. P. (2011). The Counterterrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures, and Techniques. New York: CRC Press.

Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Home Affairs Committee. (2012). Roots of violent radicalisation: nineteenth report of session 2010-12, Vol. 1: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence, Volume 1. London: The Stationery Office.

Hess, K. M., & Orthmann, C. H. (2011). Introduction to Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. New York: Cengage Learning.

Kleinig, J. Mameli, P., Miller, S., Salane, D & Schwartz, A (2011). Security and Privacy: Global Standards for Ethical Identity Management in Contemporary Liberal Democratic States. New York: ANU E Press.

Oleszek, W. J. (2011). Congressional Oversight: An Overview. New York: DIANE Publishing.

Pendleton, J. H. (2010). National Security: Key Challenges and Solutions to Strengthen Interagency Collaboration: Congressional Testimony. New York: DIANE Publishing.

Schmitt, M., Arimatsu, L., & McCormack, T. (2011). Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law – 2010. New York: Springer.

Seib, P. M., & Janbek, D. M. (2011). Global Terrorism and New Media: The Post-Al Qaeda Generation. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Sinclair, S. J., & Antonius, D. (2012). The Psychology of Terrorism Fears. London: Oxford University Press.

Vincent, B. H. (2012). Bombers, Hijackers, Body Scanners, and Jihadists. London: Xlibris Corporation.

 

 

 

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