31 Dec 2009

Systemic failure over plane attack - Obama

6:06 am on 31 December 2009

The United States President has disclosed that intelligence warnings were received weeks before a failed Christmas Day bomb attack on an American airliner.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of trying to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit by detonating explosives concealed in his clothing.

In his second statement on the attack, Barack Obama said information on the suspect should have been sufficient to alert authorities and prevent the Nigerian from getting on the flight.

Diplomats earlier passed information on the suspect to the US intelligence community and he was placed on a broad terrorist watch list, the BBC reports.

But he did not lose his US visa and did not end up on no-fly lists sent by the US government to warn airlines of security threats.

Speaking from Hawai'i, Mr Obama said that failing could have cost almost 300 lives.

"There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security," he said from Hawai'i.

AAP reports that US officials have also disclosed new intelligence suggesting links between the suspect and al-Qaeda, while US television networks showed the scorched underwear he used to conceal his potentially lethal bomb.

Mr Obama has demanded the results of an airline security review by the weekend.