Meet The Pantybomber
Hours after my boyfriend flew into Detroit Metro on a Delta/Northwest flight, Muslim terrorist Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up his own DTW-bound Northwest flight. Andrew Johnson and Emily Dugan profile the poor, disenfranchised fellow in the Independent:
With his wealth, privilege and education at one of Britain's leading universities, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab had the world at his feet - able to choose from a range of futures in which to make his mark on the world.Instead, the son of one of Nigeria's most important figures opted to make his impact in a very different way, by strapping explosives to his leg - or even possibly implanting them in his thigh - and attempting to blow up a passenger jet as it came in to land over Detroit airport on Christmas Day. The high explosive was identified last night by the FBI as Pentaerythritol (PETN - a major component of Semtex).
Also last night, as he was charged by US authorities with trying to blow up an airliner, a surprising picture emerged of the would-be bomber. Abdulmutallab, 23, had lived a gilded life, and, for the three years he studied in London, he stayed in a £2m flat. He was from a very different background to many of the other al-Qa'ida recruits who opt for martyrdom.
His father, Umaru, is the former economics minister of Nigeria. He retired earlier this month as the chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria but is still on the boards of several of Nigeria's biggest firms, including Jaiz International, a holding company for the Islamic Bank. The 70-year-old, who was also educated in London, holds the Commander of the Order of the Niger as well as the Italian Order of Merit.
Dr Mutallab said he was planning to meet with police in Nigeria last night after realising his son had joined the notorious roster of al-Qa'ida terrorists, and is said to have warned the US authorities about his son's extreme views six months ago.
I'll say it yet again: His views, that the dirty infidels must be murdered for Allah, are not extreme at all for a Quran-faithful Muslim. They are utterly in keeping with the dictates of the Quran, which are meant to be taken literally; for example, the Verse of the Sword, commanding Muslims to convert or kill the infidel.
As for tightening security on people like the 70-something nun who got felt up in her habit a while back at Detroit Metro, how about putting the security energy on stopping known threats like this guy? The Independent piece continues:
An official briefing on the attack said the US had known for at least two years that the suspect could have terrorist ties. Abdulmutallab has been on a list that included people with known or suspected contacts or ties to a terrorist or terrorist organisation. The list is maintained by the US National Counterterrorism Center and includes about 550,000 names....Police know that the KLM ticket that Abdulmutallab travelled on was purchased on 16 December, with cash, in Nigeria. The departure airport was changed from Accra to Lagos a short while afterwards. When he took his window seat, number 19A, he had only one piece of hand luggage and none in the hold - unusual for someone who was allegedly planning a two-week stay in Detroit.
El Al would have been all over him -- before the flight. Get this, though, from Hot Air, from a passenger report:
Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., who posted an earlier comment about his experience, talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday.Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.
Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys with Haskell Law Firm in Taylor. Their expertise includes bankruptcy, family law and estate planning.
While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. "The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the time.'"
Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.
The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn't see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane.
Clearly, in TSA-think, the way to remedy this is not to do better on catching the obvious terrorists; it's to make Granny Johnson diaper up before getting on a plane, because she'll no longer be able to get up in the final hour of flight to use the restroom. Or keep a personal item in her lap. Or bring more than one carry-on. And never mind that all of these new measures would have done zippo to stop this particular member of the "religion of peace," had his explosive underpanties been wired by people a little less incompetent.
UPDATE - Just tweeted this:
@amyalkon Let's ridicule those who'd mass-murder 4 Allah. Spread my term 4 Detroit plane terrorist "The Pantybomber" #pantybomber http://bit.ly/51eXQS
Independent via Jay J. Hector
Quote:
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs". The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
- - - - - - - - -
That's Mark Steyn nailing it.
We get this here in Israel with bleeding-heart Pali sympathizers who can't/won't understand that their desire to destroy "us Westerners" is NOT because of anything "we" did to them - and they really DON'T value tolerant coexistence as we do, and really DON'T want the same future that we do.
Ben-David at December 26, 2009 11:57 PM
On the plus side, Nigerian SPAM no longer offers me Pentaerythritol as a remedy for erectile dysfunction...
Radwaste at December 27, 2009 12:21 AM
Bah-dum-PUM! His name's Raddy, he's here all week! Two shows nightly! Tip your waitress! Try the veal!
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 27, 2009 12:41 AM
Gives new meaning to the phrase, "accident in his/her shorts".
Ken at December 27, 2009 4:38 AM
What the TSA authorities don't seem to have considered is that the absurdity of these restrictions actually signal that air travel security is very weak. They're telling terrorists that planes are an easy and worthwhile target.
Mike at December 27, 2009 7:09 AM
"They're telling terrorists that planes are an easy and worthwhile target."
They are. I'm a plane guy, and I can tell you a few ways better than this guy's crab remedy. Patrick Smith has gone on about this in Ask The Pilot, too.
But, you know what? Remember the Beltway Sniper?
If you have ten or twenty guys united by a cause, you can lock up the entire United States of Panicky Americans in martial law in about four hours. Pick a few scattered major-city suburbs, devoid of people who can or will shoot back, and do what they did.
The government response will be to strip-search Grandma a second time.
Radwaste at December 27, 2009 8:57 AM
Planes are an easy target, but passengers aren't. They immediately leaped into action here, beat the PantyBomber to a pulp, ripped his wires off, and helped the flight attendants cuff him to his seat. Much the same happened to the ShoeBomber a few years back. I think the lesson for terrorists here is that they'd better hope their bombs work perfectly & detonate instantaneously. Security theater doesn't even enter the picture when it comes to actual security.
Martin at December 27, 2009 8:59 AM
"The government response will be to strip-search Grandma a second time"
Making it all the more important for passengers & crew to rely on themselves.
Martin at December 27, 2009 9:03 AM
This was bound to happen sooner or later. I and friends gamed out how to make napalm on a plane in minutes. That was a few years ago.
And what's so important about not moving around the cabin an hour before landing? So the next one happens over BF Canada instead of near landing. The odds of survival in the approach pattern are that much better than 20K feet? You may get more ground based targets, but the effect is roughly the same.
Jim P. at December 27, 2009 11:46 AM
This was bound to happen sooner or later. I and friends gamed out how to make napalm on a plane in minutes. That was a few years ago.
And what's so important about not moving around the cabin an hour before landing? So the next one happens over BF Canada instead of near landing. The odds of survival in the approach pattern are that much better than 20K feet? You may get more ground based targets, but the effect is roughly the same.
Jim P. at December 27, 2009 11:47 AM
Richard Reid wasn't poor, either, was he? Niether was Mohamed Atta. And of course Osama was a quarter-billionaire.
When are we actually going to see an impoverished terrorist?
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 27, 2009 11:47 AM
What we need now is PantyBomber cartoons, similar to the original Mohammed cartoons that Muslims rioted and issued death threats over (to complain that their religion wasn't violent). The difference this time is that social media is around and they won't be able to shut any such cartoons down.
actuary21c at December 27, 2009 1:33 PM
I do love the term "pantybomber". Anything to mock these people's heroic self conceptions.
I wish TSA would just hire Schneier and be done with it. Security would be less invasive and more effective. We need random, thorough searches, combined with other unpredictable measures. As long as what we do is the same for everyone, more or less, our security can be thwarted by someone who is paying careful attention to the procedures. Instead, their response is to inconvenience everyone for trivial and easily-thwarted gains in "security".
Whatever at December 27, 2009 2:31 PM
And still no word from the pantywaist in the WH (err, in Hawaii) about the Panty-loon-jihadi...
It appears as though Abdul Farouk "I charred my ass hairs for nuthin" Abdulmutallab isn't the only fanatical-religious-shithead to board an international flight on Delta Airlines headed to Detroit. Isolated incident my ASS!
Today, on the same inbound flight to Detroit was another jihadi-reject cowering in a bathroom stall. Wonder if it was another detonator malfunction rendering useless and in agonizing pain whilst clutching the can? Wonder if he'll soon be known to us as the FireCrotch-Bomber? I want details.
I for one am thankful for cheaply constructed ass-bomb detonators.
Hey Janet Nepo, can you hear reason now?
Feebie at December 27, 2009 2:41 PM
Try this, they've also stopped the GPS of your location in flight so the terrorist won't know when to detonate to have the worst effect. Unfortunately, this also shuts down the entertainment system in a lot of planes.
So a 6-12+ hour flight with no entertainment, no blanket or pillows for the last hour, and trapped in your seat for the last hour.
And we want tourists. Yeah, right.
Jim P. at December 27, 2009 5:55 PM
Amy, I hope you nail to the wall any & all pundits who keep on repeating the canard that "poverty breeds terrorists".
Robert W. (Vancouver) at December 27, 2009 6:21 PM
My solution? ban all Muslims immigrants from entering the U.S., ban everyone with an Arab surname from flying until further notice. Include ethnic profiling in airports. F-political correctness. What will these bans do?
First, it will keep the number of potential terrorists from coming to our country.
Second, it will keep those most likely to kill westerners off of our planes and it will piss off moderate moslems...why would I want to do that? Maybe they will start to actually think and do something about these radical minded buddies.
I can hear it now...thats not fair! Thats discrimination! blah blah blah!...
Well, not all Germans were Nazis either, but we still treated them as the enemy. This is a war, and until we start thinking that way, we will continue to have this kind of nonsense.
Dragonslayer666 at December 28, 2009 6:10 PM
My solution? ban all Muslims immigrants from entering the U.S., ban everyone with an Arab surname from flying until further notice. Include ethnic profiling in airports. F-political correctness. What will these bans do?
First, it will keep the number of potential terrorists from coming to our country.
Second, it will keep those most likely to kill westerners off of our planes and it will piss off moderate moslems...why would I want to do that? Maybe they will start to actually think and do something about these radical minded buddies.
I can hear it now...thats not fair! Thats discrimination! blah blah blah!...
Well, not all Germans were Nazis either, but we still treated them as the enemy. This is a war, and until we start thinking that way, we will continue to have this kind of nonsense.
Dragonslayer666 at December 28, 2009 7:30 PM
> First, it will keep the number
> of potential terrorists from
> coming to our country.
Which number?
Bad idea.
> This is a war
No it isn't. Boosh was rightly pilloried:
• Not only for calling our first national response "Homeland Security", as if America was about real estate rather than ideas, at the precise hour of history when this had proven otherwise;
• For calling it a "war against terrorism", as if our war was with things, rather than certain people, which is most assuredly is;
• For describing this as a clash between specific personalities, rather than identities in human history; Specifically, we need to fight (and often brutally kill) factions which think history can be directed towards the fulfillment of 12-year-old boys.
In this magnificent book, it's said that the United States has accepted more immigrants than all the other nations of the world combined for the previous 25 years.
This woman amongst others has suggested that the nature of immigration from primitive Middle Eastern cultures has favored the United States in a striking disproportion. The brightest, hungriest and most modern talents have always been drawn to Boston and the Silicon Valley, whereas Europe gets the 'hillbillies'.
Don't imagine for a moment that this will be about drawing simplistic boundaries.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 29, 2009 12:32 AM
Crid, I hadn't heard of Claire Berlinski till now, but I'll be checking out her work. A daughter of David Berlinski must have something going on upstairs.
kishke at December 30, 2009 9:26 AM
The brightest, hungriest and most modern talents have always been drawn to Boston and the Silicon Valley, whereas Europe gets the 'hillbillies'.
Aren't we all agreed, though, that terrorism is not necessarily the province of the hillbillies, as demonstrated by the pantybomber?
kishke at December 30, 2009 10:12 AM
Absolutely.... I'm the guy who said above that all the really big newsmaking terrorists aren't impoverished. Last night I saw this pattern is discussed a bit in (this, which was a great Christmas gift.)
(That's right, you read it correctly: I actually received a gift this year.)
My point was that the United States has done really, really well by importing the hungriest, horniest, flexible-est motherfuckers the globe has to offer for a very long time. We're probably the nation least-equipped to stop bad guys at the border. (And I have zero, zero interest in an expanded bureaucracy to stand there with clipboards asking people stupid questions.) But we're one of the best-equipped for dealing with bad guys when they arrive.
(Anybuddy remember the Mariel boatlift? We turned all those Cuban murderers and psychopaths into Miami policemen, and everything worked out just fine!)
(I kid. But...)
If you're Israel, you can have El Al do all sorts of things to defend your borders that we can't have American Airlines do.
(Is American Airlines still in business?)
It's like socialized medicine, or any of the other fantasies of commie European fulfillment that people have. We can't do that because we're the United States, and someone has to be the grown-up on this planet.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 30, 2009 11:52 AM
Should (type) these comments when distracted at work,,
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 30, 2009 11:52 AM
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