The world is abuzz about the attempted bombing of a Detroit bound flight by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national. It seems that Umar had explosive sewn in his tidy whities that he got from Yemen. (Note to self: Don't buy undies made in Yemen). He tried to light them up in the plane but did not manage to have them detonate, just a small fire and lots of smoke. Passengers also jumped on him and managed to subdue him before he could do any damage. He is suffering from burns and has now changed his name to Nadia because he is no longer a man.
It seems that he was on the US, UK, and other watchlists. His own father called the US embassy and told them his son was acting weird and could be a potential terrorist.
Now, there are new regulations put in place that will not allow you to carry any electronics on your flight. In the last hour before the plane lands, no one is allowed to go to the loo, and more patdown for passengers and dogs sniffing at you before you get to board the plane.
These steps are useless. The real problem was that the security authorities where sleeping on the job. They should have checked their database and caught him on the ground before he could do any damage by boarding a plane. Maybe if they transferred their database to Facebook, then they would have found out that Umar was friends with BinLaden.
My advice is to put new regulations for the security people instead of harassing us peaceful passengers, and if anyone of the security people fails at their job then they would get a pair of made in Yemen undies that might or might not explode on them.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteWhy should we suffer because of some ignorant dumbo who gained nothing except to worsen the Arab/Muslim image in the West?! I don't get his logic, the way others like him think (if they actually do think)... those people are just proving that we ARE a terrorist nation. *sigh*
He was evidently at one time considered a very bright young man. He was badly injured, as you noted. One viewer said his legs had disappeared, another said melted. It must have been excruciatingly painful. The whole thing is stupid and tragic.
ReplyDelete@lendmeurear thse people don't represent us, they are following some sort of weird voodoo that tells them its ok to kill yourself with other innocents.
ReplyDelete@intlxpatr not too bright, being told to wear explosive undies and listening to his mentors.
One wonders why someone from such a background would do something like that? What happens to turn them into zombies and puppets?
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste.
@Jewaira what I wonder is how a Nigerian with explosives in feminine underpants, whose father alerted the U.S. embassy, whose ticket was bought in cash, who didn’t check bags, whose visa was denied by the UK, who studied in Yemen, whose name was on a watch list, was not caught ?
ReplyDelete*claps!* When I heard in the news that the father had tipped off intelligence I felt exactly the same as you - we have to endure an even worse travel experience because someone did not take the tip seriously enough!
ReplyDelete(p.s. I would think that since the undergarments did not induce detonation customers have more of a reason to flock to the Yemeni undergarment industry assuming the said undergarment was indeed made in Yemen. No? :P)
@1001 I always thought Yemenis wore wizar, I didnt know they wore undies, maybe they wanted to launch their new undies product line with a bang!
ReplyDeleteLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLL
ReplyDeleteistaghfaralaa il3atheem, il7imdilla wil shikur