The attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 from the Netherlands as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day was mercifully aborted by good luck — and the brave intervention of Dutch passenger Jasper Schuringa and the flight’s crew. But while the incident had a happy ending, it raised a number of troubling issues, starting with the stunning failure of the U.S. terrorist watch program to identify the suspect in this case as a threat despite ample evidence.
The suspect’s father, a prominent and wealthy Nigerian banker, had warned U.S. officials about his son’s radical religious views (see Cal Thomas’ column on today’s Commentary page).
The London Times reports that in May the suspect was refused re-entry to Britain, where he had been a university student and resident until November 2008. The New York Times reports that the alleged bomber’s name was recently added to a list of people to be investigated for terrorist ties. That list has 550,000 names, whereas the list of people who must have additional screening at airports has only 13,000 names and the “no fly list” has only 4,000.