Nigerian Terror Suspect's Explosive Underwear, Obama's Reassurances To American Public

ABC News showed photographs of the underwear worn by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab while he allegedly tried to destroy a Northwest Airlines flight landing in Detroit last week. ABC News explains, "The first photo... shows the slightly charred underpants with the bomb packet still in place... The bomb packet is a six-inch long container of the high-explosive chemical PETN, less than a half cup in volume, weighing about 80 grams. A government test with 50 grams of PETN blew a hole in the side of an airliner. That was the amount in the bomb carried by the so-called shoe bomber Richard Reid over Christmas 2001. The underpants bomb would have been one and a half times as powerful."

A court hearing for Abdulmutallab, now dubbed the "crotch bomber" by the NY Post, was postponed yesterday; the arraignment is now scheduled for January 8. The Washington Post reports that the 23-year-old Nigerian national "apparently turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship, writing in an online forum that he was 'lonely' and had 'never found a true Muslim friend.'" While the authenticity of the postings has yet to be concerned, the Post details them:

"I have no one to speak too [sic],' read a posting from January 2005, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was attending boarding school. "No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems."

The Washington Post reviewed 300 online postings under the name "farouk1986" (a combination of Abdulmutallab's middle name and birth year). The postings mused openly about love and marriage, his college ambitions and angst over standardized testing, as well as his inner struggle as a devout Muslim between liberalism and extremism. In often-intimate writings, posted between 2005 and 2007, he sought friends online, through Facebook and in Islamic chat rooms: "My name is Umar but you can call me Farouk." He often invited readers to "have your say" and once wrote, "May Allah reward you for reading and reward you more for helping."

In the meantime, President Obama, currently on vacation in Hawaii, spoke about the incident for the first time yesterday, "A full investigation has been launched into this attempted act of terrorism, and we will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable... Since I was first notified of this incident, I've ordered the following actions to be taken to protect the American people and to secure air travel." (You can read his full remarks here, including the actions he's mentioned.)

But it's still given the GOP an opportunity to go after him and his administration, especially after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's apparent initial assessment of the situation as "the system worked." On the heels of Rep. Peter King's criticism, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan) told Politico, “In the past six weeks, you’ve had the Fort Hood attack, the D.C. Five and now the attempted attack on the plane in Detroit … and they all underscored the clear philosophical difference between the administration and us.... I think Secretary Napolitano and the rest of the Obama administration view their role as law enforcement, first responders dealing with the aftermath of an attack. And we believe in a forward-looking approach to stopping these attacks before they happen.”

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on December 29, 2009 1:02 PM

Comments [rss]

Sulayman

"...And we believe in a forward-looking approach to stopping these attacks before they happen.”

Yea, the same way that swatting a beehive prevents future bee attacks, right?

dgeee

Maybe I'll buy a couple of Arabs who couldn't fly a Cessna to save their lives pulling off complicated aerial maneuvers in 747s and crashing into the Twin Towers, but exploding underpants? We are a gullible nation.

snickerdoodle

Hey, I must have missed it in all those headlines and stories, but did anybody in the media call him a muslim terrorist yet, or is the media still dancing on eggshells pretending that facts don't matter in stories about muslim terrorist acts against westerners?

handsomedevil

You must not have actually read anything, then. Nobody is denying that is was an attempted terrorist attack, and they have documented his connections to Al Quaeda. (For instance, here) But I guess "the facts don't matter" when you are an obsessive right-wing whiner.

snickerdoodle

Guess The Missing Word In NY Times Report On Attempted Plane Bombing

http://bit.ly/6M8ptf

handsomedevil

This is why you are a moron. Right in the article you linked:

"Although Mr. Abdulmutallab is said to have told officials that he was directed by Al Qaeda, the counterterrorism official expressed caution about that claim, saying “it may have been aspirational.”"

Now, WHO doesn't know what Al Quaeda is in this day and age? Oh, that's right, nobody. (Whether or not the connection is real or "aspirational", this fact tells you all you need to know about where he was coming from.) So fucking what if it doesn't say "Muslim." And the word "terror" and its variants occurs 8 times in the article including the headline. The next day they ran the story I linked that expanded on the Al Quaeda connection.

But, you didn't even read the Times coverage. You are too busy communing with your fellow dumbasses online so you can all figure out what to think, common sense and "the facts" be damned.

etypical

Obama is soft shoeing it no matter how you voted.

nicemarmot

STFU, Hoekstra. You're a goddamned inbred fundamentalist and I should know because I had the misfortune of growing up in his district. You wouldn't know security if it bit you on your wrinkled ass.

Mr. Shankly

Had he recently eaten at Taco Bell?

Splicer

Good depressed people just kill themselves.

jt10000

"We believe in a foward-looking approach, except for when our guy in the White House didn't and 3,500 people died. So please, if Obama doesn't bomb some other country or at least talk nutty-milaristic, he's being weak. We will whine about this pants bomber and act scared becaus we're strong Republicans and Americans. If you're not scared you're not strong enough."

LOL Wut?

FunChop

"And we believe in a forward-looking approach to stopping these attacks before they happen"

Just like 9/11, er no, wait...

Sir Jimbob

Isn't this a New York City blog?

EastRiver

Yes but they worked in Obama and Republicans so they must be trying for another 50 to 100 post flame war to get the page views up for their advertisers.