He is talkin'

The family of the failed Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, played a pivotal role in getting their son to start cooperating with federal authorities in sharing information about Al Qaeda, a senior administration official said Tuesday evening.

Abdulmuttalab has been cooperating with authorities and sharing intelligence since last Thursday, another administration official told ABC News.

The family was “instrumental in gaining Mr. Abdulmuttalab’s cooperation,” said the senior administration official. The information Abdulmuttalab is sharing has been described by other officials as fresh and actionable.

“It has been very successful,” the official said, “as far as gaining his cooperation that will allow us then to follow up on that information.” He said the intelligence gained “has been disseminated throughout the intelligence community.”

Into Africa

After days of being briefed on information about the case, two “experienced counterterrorism agents” from the FBI flew to Lagos, Nigeria on January 1, the official said.

Once in Nigeria, the agents met with officials of the US State Department, CIA officers, and others in the “country team.”

The agents began a “thorough and comprehensive” background investigation of Abdulmuttalab, contacting his family, friends and associates and conducting thorough background interviews “to gain understanding of the subject.”

The two agents identified those family members who “directly supported gaining Umar Farouq’s cooperation and disagreed with his effort to murder innocent civilians.”

The agents and key family members arrived in back in the US on January 17th. The family members met with officials from the Justice Department and the FBI to plan a way forward.

“One of the principal reasons why his family came back is because they had complete trust in the US system of justice and believed that Umar Farouq would be treated fairly and appropriately,” the senior official said. “And that they would be as well.”

The FBI and Abdulmuttalab’s family approached the subject and “gained his cooperation. He has been cooperating for days,” the official said.

Criticism “Frustrated The Hell Out of Me”

Abdulmuttalab was talking to FBI agents on Saturday, at the same time Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, issued the Republican response to the president’s weekly address, decrying Abdulmuttalab’s presence in the criminal justice system.

Collins is just one of many critics questioning why Abdulmuttalab was read his Miranda rights under the criminal justice system instead of being interrogated under military rules.

“There is a reason why these things are done the way they are done and believe me it frustrated the hell out of me to listen to a lot of the comments being made that were criticizing this process,” the official said. “But the premium that this White House – that this president puts on these operations – is to make sure that we do everything possible to protect the American people.”

more…..

Obama Administration Secured Help of Abdulmuttalab’s Family to Get Him to Share Intelligence – Political Punch.

al-qaeda has trained female suicide bombers to attack west, us officials warn

The women, who may have a “non Arab” appearance and be travelling on Western passports, have been prepared for their missions by the Yemeni group responsible for the operation to blow up an airliner over the United States on Christmas Day.

Details of the bombers emerged just hours after British spy chiefs raised the UK threat state to “severe” amid fears that al-Qaeda was planning a wave of attacks against western targets.

Terror experts within the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, a unit of MI5, now believe that an attack against the UK is “highly likely”.

US law enforcement agents have been told to be on the lookout for female suicide bombers who may attempt to enter the country.

At least two are believed to be connected to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which dispatched underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who tried unsuccessfully to bring down a transatlantic airliner over Detroit.

Richard Clarke, a former chief White House counter terrorism adviser, said: “They have trained women.

“There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins – that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al-Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men.”

Al-Qaeda has trained female suicide bombers to attack West, US officials warn – Telegraph.

Yemen - Shut um down!

The US and Britain have shut their Yemen embassies after threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot linked to an alleged failed US plane bomb plot.

The UK Foreign Office told the BBC its embassy in the capital Sanaa was closed “for security reasons”, hours after the US announced its mission had been shut.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier said the UK and US would step up counter-terror efforts in Yemen.

There are mounting fears lawless Yemen is becoming an al-Qaeda haven.

The embassy closures follow last week’s threat by a group called al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, urging Muslims to help in “killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places”.

In an internet statement, the group also said it was behind an attempt to bomb a transatlantic airliner on Christmas Day.

more from the BBC

BBC News – UK and US close Yemen embassies amid terror threat.

Bomber Trained by al Qaeda

US President Barack Obama has for the first time publicly accused an offshoot of al-Qaeda over the alleged Christmas Day bomb plot to blow up a US plane.

He said it appeared Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had armed and trained the accused, 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The group admitted responsibility in an internet statement last week.

Mr Obama has already condemned lapses that allowed the accused, who was on a terror database, to board the jet.

“We know that [Mr Abdulmutallab] travelled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies,” said Mr Obama, who is on holiday in Hawaii.

“It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and that this group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America.”

Full story at the BBC:

BBC News – Obama blames al-Qaeda for Christmas Day jet ‘bomb’.

Oooops! We might have created terrorists!

Following al Qaeda’s statement taking responsibility for the Christmas Day attack on Northwest Flight 253, ABC News reports that two of the bomb plot’s masterminds were former Guantanamo Bay detainees, freed in November 2007 and sent back to their home nation of Saudi Arabia. Guantanamo prisoner No. 333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi (who has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi), and prisoner No. 372, Said Ali Shari, have since been described as al Qaeda commanders and appear in propaganda videos filmed in 2009. After their release, the former prisoners entered an “art therapy rehabilitation program” in Saudi Arabia, then are believed to have migrated to Yemen where they joined a growing hotbed of al Qaeda-networked terrorist organizations. One U.S. diplomat said Saudi Arabia’s “so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke,” and ABC News notes that a similar repatriation program in Yemen was abandoned after authorities concluded participants were funneling straight back into terrorism.