Here’s a new, scary development in yesterday’s attempted terrorist attack on Northwest airlines flight by 23-year-old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: he may have had ties to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. From an AFP report via Playbook:
“Peter Hoekstra, the most senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and a member of Congress for Detroit’s state of Michigan, told AFP the suspect could have links to US-born Yemeni imam Anwar al-Aulaqi. Aulaqi, who is accused of being a senior Al-Qaeda recruiter, was known to have had emails contacts with US army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan who allegedly gunned down 13 people at a Texas military base last month. ‘He (Abdulmutallab) may have been in contact with the American imam al-Aulaqi,’ Hoekstra said after the bomb suspect apparently tried to blow up a US airliner as it began its descent into Detroit. ‘There are reports that he had contact and that he was recently in Yemen. The question we’ll have to raise is was this imam in Yemen influential enough to get some people to attack the US again,’ Hoekstra said.”
Hoekstra has been known for making somewhat exaggerated statements before and it remains to be seen if this one will pan out — still, obviously a very scary prospect should there be any truth to it. Meanwhile, according to NPR, passengers flying today appear to be taking yesterday’s incident and today’s increased security measures (such as they are) in stride:”People are very calm about it.” We’ll update as more info becomes available.
