Powder-bomb airplane plot wasn't the 1st

NY Post ^ | December 31, 2009 | CHUCK BENNETT and ANDY SOLTIS

[Scanian]

In an incident eerily similar to the Christmas Day crotch- bomb plot, airport guards in Somalia nabbed a suspected terrorist last month trying to smuggle a syringe, acid and more than 2 pounds of explosive powder aboard a Dubai-bound flight, authorities revealed yesterday.

The Somali terrorist was carrying more than 13 times the amount of explosives that al Qaeda-linked operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was packing in his undies in his failed attempt to blow up a jet over Detroit.

"We don't know whether [the November suspect is] linked with al Qaeda or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," said Somali police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise.

[Eye of Unk]

The first “failure”?

[afraidfortherepublic]

FTA:

* A senior US intelligence official downplayed the quality of the information authorities had on the Christmas plot, telling Politico.com, "Abdulmutallab's father didn't say his son was a terrorist, let alone planning an attack . . . I'm not aware of some magic piece of intelligence that suddenly would have flagged this guy -- whose name nobody even had until November -- as a killer en route to America." Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/powder_bomb_airplane_plot_wasn_the_dTqOAfpkb9e74ddM9PjY5H#ixzz0bGWpL4US

And this guy gets paid for this analysis?

[Carley]

Nappy is too busy checking out the homeschoolers, tea partiers, and town hall meeting attendees to be bothered with terrorist threats.

The O administration has it’s priorities and national and economic security are no where on the list.

[samtheman]

The Somali terrorist was carrying more than 13 times the amount of explosives that al Qaeda-linked operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was packing in his undies...

TSA employee to airline passenger: Is that a bomb in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

[HiTech RedNeck]

All we needed was a reason to either look this guy’s undies over before flying (X ray would have sufficed) or else send him on his way by land. I don’t want to ask how he got the needle on, by the way.

[LZ_Bayonet]

"* A senior US intelligence official downplayed the quality of the information authorities had on the Christmas plot, telling Politico.com, "Abdulmutallab's father didn't say his son was a terrorist, let alone planning an attack . . . I'm not aware of some magic piece of intelligence that suddenly would have flagged this guy --"

Uh, "senior US intelligence official" - YOU were given the report providing 'reasonable cause to believe'. It was YOUR job to investigate and develop further intelligence via the investigative process. If you don't understand this why do we need YOU? Why do we pay YOU? Why are we paying you as a "senior intelligence official" when you see your job as being that of a 'file clerk'?

[Ann Archy]

Janet Incompetano, as Mark Steyn calls her!! I just call her a MEAN LESBIAN who is in WAY over her Man Head.

[jwparkerjr]

They are two-fer’s. Two for one's. The first is to assess our response and level of readiness. The other is to wear us down.

They intend to keep poking at us and making us inconvenience our people and spends tons of money. They know we have a limited attention span, and we've proved them correct in that with the Christmas episode.

What happened on board flight 253 was the tail end of a long series of actions. It could have been avoided by interrupting the chain at any point. The closer to the start of the chain the less it takes to disrupt it and the more likely the action will be effective.

We've let our guard down. We'll get it back up, but it won't be long before some other ‘crisis’ distracts us.