Intelligence Ties to The Underwear Bomber
January 18, 2010 by Bob Livingston
Could the Christmas day bomb attempt on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 have been a false flag set up by various intelligence agencies with the goal of tightening the grip of governments on its people while enriching a few well-connected individuals and corporations?
That idea—seemingly incomprehensible at first glance—gains credence the more one looks to connect a few dots.
There remain many unanswered questions about just what happened in the months, days and hours leading up to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to detonate the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN)—which he had concealed in his underwear—as the flight descended on Detroit.
President Obama, in a news conference on Jan. 7, said a “systemic” failure allowed Abdulmutallab to board a plane at the Amsterdam Schiphol airport carrying the explosives. But was it a failure, or was it an orchestrated event?
As we documented here it’s being reported that Abdulmutallab used cash to buy a one-way ticket to the United States at the last minute while carrying no luggage and being on a terrorist watch list. Incredibly, his father had communicated to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria in November that Abdulmutallab had been radicalized and may be planning a terrorist attack.
At least one witness—passenger Kurt Haskell—claimed that a well-dressed Indian man had escorted Abdulmutallab to the ticket counter and told a ticket agent that Abdulmutallab didn’t have a passport but needed to get on the plane. Haskell’s story has since been corroborated by another passenger who has asked not to be identified, according to a blog posted by Haskell’s wife, Lori. Dutch authorities deny this but refuse to release surveillance video of the airport terminal.
Haskell has also said another Indian man was arrested after the flight landed. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) disputes Haskell’s version of the story. However, the FBI has orchestrated a cover-up by giving at least four different accounts of what happened once the plane was on the ground.
But there is much more to the story, and it starts a little more than two years ago.
In November 2007, under orders from President George W. Bush, two Guantanamo Bay prisoners were released to Saudi Arabia. From there they went to Yemen where they joined with the top leader of al-Qaida in Yemen and went to work.
As CBS News has reported, in August 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) picked up information on a person of interest dubbed “The Nigerian.” He was said to have met with “terrorist elements” in Yemen. The Nigerian has turned out to be Abdulmutallab. But that connection was not made when Abdulmutallab’s father went to the U.S. Embassy on Nov. 19. There are also reports out of the United Kingdom that MI5 had warned the CIA about him in 2008 as well.
Despite Abdulmutallab’s father’s disclosure to U.S. authorities, Abdulmutallab’s visa was not revoked nor was his name placed on a no-fly list. That an oversight like this could occur by accident, without the knowledge of the CIA and U.S. State Department, is not believable.
As Gordon Duff reports in Veterans Today, groups claiming to be al-Qaida in Yemen say the Detroit attack was in retaliation for U.S. cruise missile attacks on bases in Yemen. According to a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the al-Qaida terrorists released from Guantanamo by Bush are really Israeli intelligence agents. This was stated by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh when he announced the arrest of a group of alleged Islamist militants. He did not say what evidence pointed toward a link with Israel.
Duff told AmericanFreePress.net (AFP) that there is no al-Qaida in Yemen. “George Bush released a couple of phony operatives from Guantanamo, and after travelling to the Middle East, they hooked up with [the Israeli intelligence agency] Mossad. The only reason Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez released them is because they’re assets,” Duff told AFP.
And, as Duff reports, Abdulmutallab’s father also has ties to Mossad, as well as the CIA station chief and U.S. Ambassador in Nigeria. Named Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab, he is one of the richest men in the world and recently retired as chairman of Nigeria’s First Bank. He also serves on the board of a number of Nigerian corporations and runs the nation’s national arms industry in partnership with Mossad.
Israeli intelligence officers have been training Nigerian security forces for some time, according to an article in Nigeria’s Daily Trust newspaper. Reports show that Mossad trains the military, sells weapons, runs the airports and wields power over Defense Industries Corporation (DICON) in Nigeria, according to AFP.
In an interview with AFP, Duff said he’s not surprised that a man of Indian descent has been tied in with the Abdulmtullab’s bombing attempt. Israel and India are close business partners, especially via their military contracts. He also said the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) works hand-in-hand with Israel.
As investigative journalist Wayne Madsen wrote in a recent copyrighted Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Asian intelligence believes the Indian man who helped Abdulmtullab through security was a RAW agent who used his influence to convince airline and airport security personnel that Abdulmtullab was a bona fide Sudanese refuge.
WMR reports that the security company that cleared Abdulmtullab in Schiphol is the Israeli-owned International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS). Many of ICTS’s officers are former Israeli intelligence agents. The online version of Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Haaretz.com, reports the failure of ICTS, saying: “Even if U.S. intelligence failed and the name of the Nigerian passenger was not pinpointed as a suspect for the airline, he should have stirred the suspicion of the security officers. His age, name, illogical travel route, high-priced ticket purchased as the last minute, his boarding without luggage (only a carry-on) and many other signs should have been sufficient to alert security officers and warrant further examination of the suspect. However, the security supervisor… allowed him to get on the flight.”
It’s not the first time ITCS has failed. The firm also cleared attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid for a Miami-bound American Airlines flight from Paris in December 2001. And, on Sept. 11, 2001, ITCS handled security at Boston Logan Airport, Newark Airport and Dulles Airport, the three airports from which the ill-fated 9/11 planes took off. ITCS also handled security at the London transportation system when the July 7, 2005, bombing took place there.
There is another common link between Reid and Abdulmtullab: the explosive PETN. That’s what Reid had in his shoes that he tried to set off before being subdued by other passengers.
But Duff told AFP that the explosives Abdulmtullab had on him “couldn’t have blown up his own seat. Even if full power, it wouldn’t have worked.”
PETN is commonly used with blasting caps to set it off. The chemical concoction used by Abdulmtullab only caused a small fire.
So, to close the circle, who stands to gain?
First, every attempted terrorist act is met by a call for tighter security and better screening. Now the cry for full body scanners is getting louder. And who is making the most noise on these? People in Congress and those who are in a position to influence the sale of the machines. Some of them are:
- Former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff lobbies for Rapiscan Systems, one of the leading manufacturers of the scanners. Chertoff’s department purchased five of the scanners in 2005. He hit the news talk shows within hours of the attempted bombing.
- Another manufacturer is American Science and Engineering. It is represented by former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) deputy administrator Tony Blank, who also once worked for House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Also lobbying for the firm is Chad Wolf, former assistant administrator for policy at TSA and a former aid to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), who is the ranking Republican on the transportation committee.
- Smiths Detection, another screening manufacturer, employs the lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates. Working for them is Kevin Patrick Kelly, a former top staffer to Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who sits on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. Former Rep. Helen Delich Bentley (R-Md.) also works for Smiths.
- L-3 Systems is represented by former Sen. Al D’Amato (R-N.Y.), and is said to have developed one of the most sophisticated systems available.
But that’s not all. It just so happens that some provisions of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 are due to expire at the end of the year and President Obama wants them to continue. These provisions are a boon to intelligence-gathering agencies.
They are:
- The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court which grants the government “roving wiretaps” without identifying the target.
- The FISA court’s ability to grant warrants for “business records,” from banking to library to medical records.
- The so-called “lone wolf” provision, enacted in 2004, that allows the FISA court to issue warrants for electronic monitoring of an individual even without showing that the person is an agent of a foreign power or a suspected terrorist.
What better way to convince a skeptical Congress and public that an unconstitutional intrusion on liberty should be continued than through a failed terrorist attempt?
And finally, the military-industrial complexes of the U.S. and Israel stand to gain, as do the Bush conservatives (also called neocons), all of whom are pushing for a ramping up of military activities in Yemen. Plus, neocons like Gingrich—and most conservatives for that matter—have used the attempted bombing to bludgeon Obama as being soft on terror.
Remember, government loves a crisis. Crises allows government to push through things it could never accomplish without the people being in a state of fear and urgency.
Unfortunately, it seems the traveling public is going to stand passively by and allow their governments to squeeze them even more and use them to make pornographic photos, all in the name of a false sense of security.
(Editor’s note: My original plan for this article was to write on the dangers presented to the travelling public by the full body scanners. Sadly it seems now that their use in all airports is a foregone conclusion. However, my research led me off on this tangent, and the more I dug the more I uncovered. I realize that the vast majority of the public is not ready or willing to believe that agencies for their government could be so diabolical as to intentionally place people’s lives in jeopardy for profit or control. But I’ve sourced the information well enough that if you care to examine the evidence for yourself, you can. I suggest you do that before dismissing this out of hand. Next Monday I will write on the dangers inherent in the scanners themselves. But don’t be surprised if more on the bombing—and those who could be behind it—follows.)
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