Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab popularly referred to as the "Underwear Bomber" or "Christmas Bomber", is a Nigerian terrorist who attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, U.S. on 25 December 2009.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed to have organised the attack with Abdulmutallab; they said they supplied him with the bomb and trained him. Connections to al-Qaeda and Anwar al-Awlaki have been found, although the latter denied ordering the bombing.
Abdulmutallab was convicted in a U.S. federal court of eight federal criminal counts, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder of 289 people. On 16 February 2012, he was sentenced to 4 life terms plus 50 years without parole. He is incarcerated at ADX Florence, the supermax federal prison in Colorado.
Background
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is the youngest of 16 children of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a wealthy Nigerian banker and businessman, and his second wife, Aisha. The father was described by The Times in 2009 as being "one of the richest men in Africa." He is a former Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and former Nigerian Federal Commissioner for Economic Development. The family comes from Funtua in Katsina State. Abdulmutallab was raised initially in an affluent neighbourhood of Kaduna, in Nigeria's north.Abdulmutallab attended Essence International School and also took classes at the Rabiatu Mutallib Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, named for his grandfather, at that time. He also attended The British School of Lomé, Togo. He was considered a gifted student, and enjoyed playing PlayStation games and basketball. According to multiple people who knew him at the time, Abdulmutallab became very pious in his teenage years, detaching himself from others his age. He condemned his father's banking profession for charging interest, which is prohibited in Islam, and urged him to quit.
For the 2004–5 academic year, Abdulmutallab studied at the Sana'a Institute for the Arabic Language in Sana'a, Yemen, and attended lectures at Iman University.
London: September 2005 – June 2008
Abdulmutallab began his studies at University College London in September 2005, where he studied Engineering and Business Finance, and earned a degree in mechanical engineering in June 2008.He was president of the school's Islamic Society, which some sources have described as a vehicle for peaceful protest against the actions of the United States and the United Kingdom in the war on terrorism. During his tenure as president, along with political discussions, the club participated in activities such as martial arts training and paintballing; at least one of the Society's paintballing trips involved a preacher who reportedly said: "Dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise." He was well liked as president of the society and considered to be moderate though politically engaged. He organized a talk about the detention of terror suspects, and walked down Gower Street in an orange jumpsuit.
He organized a conference in January 2007 under the banner "War on Terror Week", and advertised speakers including political figures, human rights lawyers, speakers from Cageprisoners, and former Guantánamo Bay detainees. One lecture, Jihad v Terrorism, was billed as "a lecture on the Islamic position with respect to jihad".
During those years, Abdulmutallab "crossed the radar screen" of MI5, the UK's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, for radical links and "multiple communications" with Islamic extremists.
At the age of 21, Abdulmutallab told his parents that he wanted to get married; they refused on the grounds that he had not yet earned a master's degree.
On 12 June 2008, Abdulmutallab applied for and received from the US embassy in London a multiple-entry visa, valid until 12 June 2010, with which he visited Houston, Texas, from 1–17 August 2008.
After graduating from university, Abdulmutallab made regular visits to the family town of Kaduna, where his father was known for financing local mosque construction and other public works.
Dubai: January–July 2009
In May 2009, Abdulmutallab tried to return to Britain, ostensibly for a six-month "life coaching" program at what the British authorities concluded was a fictitious school; the United Kingdom Border Agency denied his visa application. His name was placed on a UK Home Office security watch list which, according to BBC News, meant that he could not enter the UK. Passing through the country in transit was permissible and he was not permanently banned; the UK did not share the information with other countries. This status was based on his visa application being rejected to prevent immigration fraud rather than for a national security purpose.Yemen: August–December 2009
Intelligence officials suspect that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula member, Anwar al-Awlaki, may have directed Abdulmutallab to Yemen for al-Qaeda training. Abdulmutallab's father agreed in July 2009 to his son's request to return to the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language in Yemen, to study Arabic from August to September 2009. He arrived in the country in August. Abdulmutallab was the only African in the 70-student school. A fellow student at the Institute said Abdulmutallab would start his day by going to the mosque for dawn prayers and then spent hours in his room reading the Quran. Ahmed Mohammed, one of his teachers, said Abdulmutallab spent the last 10 days of Ramadan sequestered in a mosque. He apparently left the institute after a month, while remaining in-country.His family became concerned in August 2009 when he called to say he had dropped the course, but was remaining in Yemen. By September, he routinely skipped his classes at the Institute and attended lectures at Iman University, known for suspected links to terrorism. "He told me his greatest wish was for sharia and Islam to be the rule of law across the world," said one of his classmates at the institute. The Institute obtained an exit visa for him at his request, and on 21 September arranged for him to go the airport to return home. However, he did not leave the country at that time.
In October 2009, Abdulmutallab sent his father a text message saying that he was no longer interested in pursuing an MBA in Dubai, and wanted to study sharia and Arabic in a seven-year course in Yemen. When his father threatened to cut off his funding, Abdulmutallab said he was "already getting everything for free" and refused to tell his father who would support him. He sent more texts stating he would be cutting off contact and disowning his family. The family last had contact with Abdulmutallab in October 2009.
Yemeni officials said that Abdulmutallab was in Yemen from early August 2009, and overstayed his student visa. He left Yemen on 7 December, flying to Ethiopia, and then two days later to Ghana. Yemeni officials have said that Abdulmutallab travelled to the mountainous Shabwah Province to meet with "al-Qaeda elements" before leaving Yemen. A video of Abdulmutallab and others training in a desert camp, firing weapons at targets including the Star of David, the British Union Jack flag, and the letters "UN", was produced by al-Qaeda in Yemen. The tape includes a statement justifying his actions against "the Jews and the Christians and their agents." Ghanaian officials say he was there from 9 December until 24 December, when he flew to Lagos.
In February 2010, a Yemeni security official said that 43 people were being interrogated for links to the Christmas Day attempt, including foreigners, some of them studying Arabic and others married to Yemeni women. Abdulmutallab was thought to have used Arabic studies as a pretext for entering the country. Saïd Kouachi, one of the attackers—now deceased—in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, is believed to have been one of Abdulmutallab's neighbors at the Yemeni Arabic language school.
Awareness by US intelligence
On 11 November 2009, British intelligence officials sent the US a cable indicating that a man named "Umar Farouk" had spoken to al-Awlaki, pledging to support jihad, but the cable did not give Abdulmutallab's last name. On 19 November, Abdulmutallab's father consulted with two CIA officers at the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, reporting his son's "extreme religious views", and told the embassy that Abdulmutallab might be in Yemen. Acting on the report, the CIA added the suspect's name in November 2009 to the US's 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database of the National Counterterrorism Center. It was not added to the FBI's 400,000-name Terrorist Screening Database, the terror watch list that feeds both the 14,000-name Secondary Screening Selectee list and the US's 4,000-name No Fly List, nor was Abdulmutallab's American visa revoked.US State Department officials said in Congressional testimony that the State Department had wanted to revoke Abdulmutallab's visa, but intelligence officials requested that his visa not be revoked. The intelligence officials said that revoking Abdulmutallab's visa could have foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaeda.
Abdulmutallab's name had come to the attention of intelligence officials many months before that, but no "derogatory information" was recorded about him. A Congressional official said that Abdulmutallab's name appeared in US reports reflecting that he had connections to both al-Qaeda and Yemen. The NCTC did not check to see whether Abdulmutallab's American visa was valid, or whether he had a British visa that was valid; they did not learn that the British had rejected Abdulmutallab's visa application earlier in 2009. British officials had not informed the United States because the visa application was not denied for a national security purpose.