US warned about bomb plot

US security forces were warned of the Christmas Day bomb plot just weeks before the failed attack on a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was added to a terrorist watchlist in November after officials were contacted by his father, however the Dutch Government said security checks at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam revealed no suspicious matters as the 23 year old boarded the aircraft.

It has been reported in the US that government officials received intelligence just weeks earlier that a Nigerian was in Yemen preparing for a terrorist attack.

The State Department in the US said it would be premature to comment on the claim while investigations were continuing.

However the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has confirmed it was aware of Abdulmutallab’s extremist connections for at least a month.

Spokesman for the CIA George Little said the agency learned of him in November, when his father went to the US embassy in Nigeria and sought help I finding him.  He added that they did not have a his name before then, and worked with the government to ensure that he was in the US government’s terrorist database.

Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst has announced that full body scanners would be introduced at Schipol Airport for flights to the US, while the BAA, which owns six airports in the UK has said it plans to await a European Union ruling on privacy regulations before considering the move.