The Nigerian suspect in a failed Christmas Day airliner bombing turned against the cleric who claims to be his teacher and has helped the US hunt for the radical preacher, an official said on Thursday.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who faces terrorism charges in the Christmas bombing, has been cooperating with the FBI for days, providing information about his contacts in Yemen and the al-Qaeda affiliate that operates there.
His cooperation talking about US-born Yemeni radical Anwar al-Awlaki is significant because it could provide fresh clues for authorities trying to capture or kill him in the remote mountains of Yemen. Al-Awlaki has emerged as a prominent al-Qaeda recruiter and has been tied to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, Abdulmutallab and the suspect in November’s deadly shooting rampage in Texas.
The law enforcement official would not say what information Abdulmutallab provided, but al-Awlaki himself said in a recent interview that he and Abdulmutallab had kept in contact. A senior US intelligence official said al-Awlaki represented the biggest name on the list of people Abdulmutallab might have information about. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive ongoing investigation.
Abdulmutallab’s cooperation with US authorities is at the center of a political dispute in Washington. Democrats say it proves the administration of US President Barack Obama was correct to handle the case as a criminal matter. Republicans accuse the administration of leaking details for political purposes.
Abdulmutallab agreed to cooperate after FBI agents flew to Nigeria and returned to the US with Abdulmutallab’s family members. In a federal prison outside Detroit, Abdulmutallab’s father and uncle persuaded him to cooperate with the FBI, said a US official briefed on the talks, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing case.
A month before the attack, Abdulmutallab’s father warned the US embassy in Nigeria that his son might be dangerous, a warning that officials failed to connect to other evidence that intelligence officials had gathered. Obama has said the US had enough information to prevent the attack.
Al-Awlaki, who once preached in mosques in California and northern Virginia and posted fiery English-language Internet sermons urging Muslims to fight in jihad, said in an interview released on Thursday that he taught the Christmas bomber and supported his efforts, but did not call for the attack.
“Brother mujahid Umar Farouk — may God relieve him — is one of my students, yes,” al-Awlaki said in the interview, which al-Jazeera reported on its Web site on Tuesday. “We had kept in contact, but I didn’t issue a fatwa to Umar Farouk for this operation.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS