US/Nigeria - Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda claims Nigerian failed jet attack

Article published on the 2009-12-29 Latest update 2009-12-29 14:22 TU

The syringe detonator used with an explosive device in an attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 on its way to Detroit
(Credit: Reuters/ABC News

Al-Qaeda claimed the failed attempt to blow up a US-bound jetliner on Christmas Day, according to US monitors, and the group also threatened further attacks on the West and on Yemen. Al-Qaeda claimed on a website that a "technical fault" caused the bomb failure that Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab carried in his underpants.

The Yemen-Saudi Arabian arm of Al-Qaeda that made the claim of responsibility. It is the first time it has struck outside the Gulf, according to experts.

Abdulmutallab had spent time in Yemen, first as a university student, and then, as he confessed to US officials, to receive training from an Al-Qaeda bombmaker there.

The Nigerian national was aboard a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, in the US. He tried to set off a bomb as the plane was in US airspace.

Al Qaeda is intersted in aviation targets because a successful attempt will bring them huge publicity, said Paul Wilkinson, a terrorism expert at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at University of St.Andrews.

Using Nigerian nationals "is a new development," said Wilkinson. "They certainly have been active in grooming people from Nigeria. They know that there are people who are very susceptible to extremist ideology in all the Muslim countries," he added.

Claude Moniquet, a terrorism specialist at the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center in Brussels, does not agree, however.

"The problem related to extremists in Nigeria is via the locale, with a local agenda. This is not connected to the global jihad, at least until today," said Moniquet. "So I don't think it is significant."

Moniquet added that he didn't think that Nigeria was a hub of Al Qaeda, and does not see a network forming, such as Al Qaeda in the Maghreb.

US President Barack Obama ordered a probe into the bomb attempt. He pledged Monday to "disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us - whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the US homeland".