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You are here: Home >> Politics >> A little terrorist opens the next round in the world war against Islam. By Jürgen Elsässer.

12.01.2010 A little terrorist opens the next round in the world war against Islam. By Jürgen Elsässer.

Underwear-bomber under a false flag?

(gm). In the noughties, we had to get used to many things. The claim that Osama and the 19 hijackers planned the September 11th attacks in a cave in the Hindu Kush unleashed the perpetual war in Afghanistan. Anthrax n.b: from a US-military laboratory was used to justify the Patriot Act, which has until now been the most disastrous attack on civil liberties. The UN agreed to the invasion of Iraq based Colin Powell's Rocky Horror PowerPoint show on Saddam's biological weapons.

The transition into a new decade began with an operation that leaves the audacity of the previous ten years in the shade. The governments of western powers proclaimed within a few days that a new front was opening that would not only involve intervening in the private spheres – but also even in the most intimate areas of their citizens’ lives. The reason for this is that there was an inflated “terrorist attack”, even if it was only a dumb, albeit dangerous, practical joke. An adolescent on a plane sets fire to chemicals in his underwear causing severe burns to himself. In the coming weeks and months in retribution, hundreds, if not thousands of people will have to die in Yemen and elsewhere.

As blogger Greg Lawrence aptly wrote: "Precisely when America needs a good reason to attack Yemen, one appears. Now nobody is disturbed by the fact that the USA and the Saudis want to attack Yemen, whereas they would have been before this recent terrorist attack"[1]. That is in line with what Senator Joe Lieberman, a die-hard Neo-Con, suggested shortly after the underwear bombing: "Yesterday, a member of our government in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, said that Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act pre-emptively, then Yemen will become tomorrow's war. That is the danger to which we are exposed."[2]

Hot pants on flight 253
At noon on 25th December, Northwest Airlines flight 253 landed at Detroit airport. The plane set off at 8:45 CET from Amsterdam. Shortly before reaching its destination, 23-year-old childish-looking Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was locked in the onboard toilet for 20 minutes. Back in his seat, he complained of stomach pains and subsequently spread a blanket over his lap. A short while later, fellow passengers heard a "pop", it smouldered and flames arose. Courageous passengers overpowered the bomber.

Four days later, the "Bild" newspaper presented the "terrorist's explosive underwear: a space for the explosive powder was sewn into the crotch. The package was just over 15 centimetres long, weighing roughly 80 grams". The paper, whcih also likes to show other underwear models, this time coming up with a picture of the corpus delicti. "The underwear's fabric is singed. That shows how close the passengers of the plane were to disaster. How fatal the impact of an explosion… would have proved a test for the government: Only 50 grams of the chemical would have blown the entire side of a plane apart." [3]

Every complacent housewife could be sent to Stammheim prison as a terrorist using such an argument: Domestos, associated with cleaning toilets to a shine in Swabia and other areas, is also conveniently suitable for mixing and detonating and then blasting through buildings. Without the proper ingredients the blast will go off in your trousers, like on the flight above Detroit. This is a problem that "The Spiegel" has recognised in better times. Such as in 2006, when the story that so-called Islamists wanted blow up several transatlantic flights using the basic chemical TAPT, found in nail-polish remover and hairspray, the magazine wrote: "TAPT is created… only after a reaction taking hours, in which the explosive powder settles at the bottom of the test-tube. But countless accidents demonstrate that even in the mixing process itself, deadly force can be released." [4] Such scientific pleas didn't last long, the TATP-theory quickly became mainstream – and since then passengers have had to present toothpaste and other deadly weapons in a clear bag. Full-body searches are now being prepared because of the heinous material Pentaerythritol PETN being analysed in Detroit.

Same procedure as every year
The tragedy repeats itself as a farce: As with the previous bloody attacks – 9/11, Madrid 3/11, London 7/7, etc – also in the bloodless attempted-attack in Detroit, there are many references to secret service involvement:

* The National Security Agency (NSA), entrusted with overseeing global communications worldwide, knew "for four months that 'a Nigerian' in Yemen was being prepared for an attack". [5] Nothing happened.

* The bomber's father, Umaru Abdul Mutallab, a member of his country's elite, the president of the First Bank of Nigeria for the last 10 years and on the board of the Nigerian-Italian oil trust, NAOC. [6] He warned the American secret service, the CIA, about the radicalisation of his son. According to sources, after an interview with the father, a report about the radicalisation of Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab was produced. The report was then sent to the CIA headquarters in Virginia, it was then subsequently, but inadequately passed on to the various secret services."[7] That was how the young man came to be added to the estimated 500,000 people on the American secret service's "risk" database, but he failed to end up on the "no-fly" list.

* What makes the fact that the would-be-bomber was nevertheless allowed to fly to the US all the more remarkable is that in Nairobi where his trip began, he only bought a one-way ticket, which he paid for in cash and he only had hand luggage – unusual behaviour for normal passengers, which should have triggered further scrutiny, in addition to the standard airport security checks.

* Abdulmutallab couldn't produce a passport at the transfer in Amsterdam and he also looked somewhat confused. There he was assisted by a guardian angel, a well-dressed older Indian man. "He attempted to pass him off as a Sudanese refugee", an eyewitness reported to the newspaper "The Detroit News".

* Another accomplice, also an Indian, could have been on board flight 253. Passengers reported via "The Detroit News" that this man in his early thirties was led away in handcuffs after the plane landed. The eyewitnesses are holding fast to their version of events, even though they were repeatedly questioned and they blame “the government, accusing them of concealing the facts about the incident.”[9]

Londonistan
Her Majesty's secret service has to deal some particularly tough criticisms. Before Abdulmutallab even travelled to Yemen in the summer of 2009 (and there he allegedly met his Al-Qaeda contact, Anwar al-Aulaki), he was in London from 2005 until 2008 and there he had "multiple connections with extremists who were being watched by the secret service". But this information was not passed on to their American partners, because MI5 "didn't deem the student to be excessively dangerous". [10] The young man occupied a 4 million pound apartment close to the university that is registered to an American company. [11]

There seems to have been a slip up, or perhaps it was even noble British data protection of a rich foreign student. It is of course a bit edgy that among the Nigerians contacts was a man whose property was searched by Scotland Yard on new year's eve and about whom the “Guardian” report: "It is to be understood that he is the owner of the property and that he is cooperating with the police. He has not been arrested."[12] Even edgier is when you hear in the Guardian that Abdulmutallab "visited a conservative Institute with connections to the Saudis”, namely the Al-Maghrib Institute, followers of the radical Salafi interpretation of Islam, but oh wonder! – The so-called Islamist fighters are cooperating with the other side, specifically "with US counter-terrorism officials." [13] The institute also has branches in Houston, Texas, where Abdulmutallab junior attended a course led by Yashir Qadhi.

CNN reported that this noble man "was a leading participant in the US counter radicalisation strategy conference in the summer of 2008, organised by the counterterrorism centre."[14] Now we come full circle: The US-Counterterrorism Centre NCTC, where Abdulmutallab's instructor Qahdi lectured at least occasionally, is under the supervision of the Terrorist Screening Centre, which is in turn responsible for creating the "no-fly" lists. How can it be that the young Nigerian was absent from any "no-fly" list despite numerous warnings? Was the would-be terrorist coached and protected by a joint venture between Saudi and US services, that don't fight terrorism, but rather constantly orchestrate it? In 2007, Pulitzer-Prize winner, Seymour Hersh reported from the inner workings of the false flag command. According to that, the former US-Vice President Dick Cheney with Prince Bandar, the security advisor at the Court in Riad clandestinely fostered terror networks, in order to attack a common enemy. "We are now busy trying to support Sunnis against the Shi'a wherever possible – against the Shi'a in Iran, against the Shi'a in Lebanon," Hersh summed up. [15]

And due to the circumstances, against the Shi'a in Yemen as well. On 10th November 2009 Sana’a and Washington ended a military assistance agreement shortly after bombing began on the areas occupied by Shi'a rebels in the north of the country. In mid-December, two US cruise missiles engaged alongside Saudi aircraft. Since the hysterical developments of "Detroit", they now have to reckon with the deployment of US and American troops.

Footnotes:
[1] German at http://www.0815-info.de/News-file-article-sid-10618.html
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/27/lieberman-the-united-stat_n_404241.html
[3] N.N., Der Terrorist von Delta NW 253: In dieser Unterhose steckte der Sprengstoff, Bild-Online 29.12.2009
[4] Dominik Cziesche u.a., Rekruten des Irrsinns, DER SPIEGEL, 14.8.2006
[5] rüb., Obama zitiert Geheimdienstchefs zur Krisensitzung, FAZ 2.1.2010.
[6] comp. Daniel Neun, Flug 253 Chronologie: Akt II – von London ach Houston, http://www.radio-utopie.de, 4.1.2010
[7] ase/Reuters, Londons Geheimdienst unterschätzte Gefährlichkeit des Detroit-Bombers, SPIEGEL-Online 3.1.2010
[8] comp. Rainer Rupp, Falsche Flagge?, junge welt, 4.1.2010 – with reference to the New York Times
[9] Jennifer Chambers / Paul Egan, Custom official confirms report of 2nd man, The Detroit News, Erscheinungsdatum unklar
[10] ase/Reuters, Londons Geheimdienst unterschätzte Gefährlichkeit des Detroit-Bombers, SPIEGEL-Online 3.1.2009
[11] Daniel Neun, a.a.O., with reference to http://www.saharareporters.com/index.php?
[12] cited by Daniel Neun, a.a.O., mwith reference to Duncan Gardham, Police search property in hunt for Detroit bomber's British network, Guardian 3112.2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6917559/Police-search-property-in-hunt-for-Detroit-bombers-British-network.htm
[13] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6917559/Police-search-property-in-hunt-for-Detroit-bombers-British-network.htm
[14] Daniel Neun, with reference to http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/30/terror.suspect.seminar
[15 Seymor M. Hersh, Seymor M. Hersh, The redirection, The New Yorker 5.3.2007

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