- He tried to board without a passport, claims passenger
- It's unlikely to be single-handed plot, says Alan Johnson
- Suspect on UK watch list after applying to bogus college
- Family warned security services two months ago
- MI5 in hunt for accomplices and links in London
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who has been charged with the attempting bombing of the Amsterdam-Detroit flight, warned FBI agents there are other terrorists waiting in Yemen, according to ABC News in the U.S.
His claims bolster fears of a link to a wider terrorist cell operating out of the Arabian country.
U.S. officials, who today released the first picture of Abdulmutallab since his arrest, say he told them he was trained on how to detonate explosives by Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.
The latest revelations about the suspect emerged hours after security officials there said they had arrested 29 suspected Al Qaeda members. It is not known if any are linked to the Christmas Day airline plot.
The terror organisation's presence in Yemen has grown in the past year. It is feared the group want to exploit instability in the country to carry out attacks in the world's main oil exporting region and beyond.
Al Qaeda posted a video online from there four days before his foiled attack, declaring: 'We are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of God.'
Meanwhile, a passenger on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight targeted on Christmas Day claimed today Abdulmutallab tried to board the aircraft without a passport.
Kurt Haskell, an American lawyer who was on the flight with his wife, says he spotted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the check-in queue at Amsterdam.
Mr Haskell claimed the 23-year-old was with a smartly dressed man in his 50s who did most of the talking and asked if Abdulmutallab could board without a passport.
The pair were told to speak to a manager in a separate part of the airport and the lawyer did not see the suspect again until he tried to denonate his bomb, he said.
If Abdulmutallab was allowed to board without a passport, this would represent a huge lapse in security far outweighing concerns that he was able to board the plane despite being on terrorist watch lists both in the UK and the U.S.
The description of his 'accomplice' will also fuel the belief that the suspect was not acting alone when he tried to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson has already said today that he believes Adbulmutallab was part of a wider terrorist cell.
Mr Johnson said: 'We don't know yet whether it was a single-handed plot or (there were) other people behind it - I suspect it's the latter rather than the former.'
British security services are already hunting for possible accomplices as they probe the bomber's links in the UK.
The minister confirmed that Abdulmutallab had been put on a UK watch list after he was refused a student visa following an application to study at a bogus college.
He suggested the U.S. authorities should have been warned about the British ban, which was issued last May, saying he 'doubted' there had been any 'hiccup' in procedures.
'If you are on our watch list then you do not come into this country. You can come through this country if you are in transit to another country but you cannot come into this country,' Mr Johnson said.
Abdulmutallab's own father had become so worried about his son's extremist behaviour that he warned security services in his home country and then in the U.S., the family have revealed.
In a statement today, they said he approached Nigerian security agencies two months ago after the 23-year-old went to study abroad and severed all ties.
'His father, having become concerned about his disappearance and stoppage of communication while schooling abroad, reported the matter to Nigerian security agencies about two months ago and to some foreign security agencies about a month and a half ago,' they said.
'The disappearance and cessation of communication which got his mother and father concerned ... are completely out of character and a very recent development.'
The statement added: 'We were hopeful that they would find and return him home. It was while we were waiting for the outcome of their investigation that we arose to the shocking news of that day.'
The family insisted that they had 'provided them with all the information required of us to enable them' to find Abdulmutallab.
Mr Haskell was queuing at Amsterdam with his wife Lori on Christmas morning as they travelled home to Newport, Michigan, from a safari in Uganda.
He saw the would-be suicide bomber with a man dressed in an expensive suit, who looked to be in his 50s, he said.
The second man asked if Abdulmutallab could fly without a passport, he claimed. 'The guy said "He's from Sudan and we do this all the time",' he said.
The lawyer said he now believes the man may have been trying to get sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.
He says he did not see Abdulmutallab again until he tried to detonate his bomb. The smell of smoke prompted Mr Haskell to get up and have a look.
'I stood up and walked a couple feet ahead to get a closer look, and that's when I saw the flames. It started to spread pretty quickly. It went up the wall, all the way to ceiling,' he said.
It was about 30 seconds after the first signs of smoke that the 23-year-old was subdued by fellow passengers, he added.
'He didn't fight back at all. This wasn't a big skirmish,” Haskell said. “A couple guys jumped on him and hauled him away,' he said.
As Abdulmutallab was being led out of the plane in handcuffs, Haskell said he realized that was the same man he saw trying to board the plane in Amsterdam.
Mr Haskell has set out his version of events in a statement to the FBI. U.S. authorities have not commented on the claims but they have already admitted the system had 'failed'.
Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano said 'our system did not work in this instance'.
An investigation is already under way to establish why Abdulmutallab was allowed to board the plane despite being on the U.S. terrorist watch list.
Abdulmutallab went to a boarding school in Lome, Togo, before coming to Britain to study engineering at University College London, where he was enrolled until June 2008. According to reports, he was president of its Islamic Society during his time there.
A family friend said he visited Yemen twice for short Arabic and Islamic courses. Nigerian media said he moved to Egypt, then Dubai, where he cut family ties.
British officials denied Abdulmutallab a visa last May because he applied using the name of a fake college but he was still able to get a U.S. visa, which was issued in London.
Nigerian Information Minister Dora Akunyuli said yesterday that he 'sneaked' back into Nigeria on Christmas Eve, the day before the attack, where he took a flight to Amsterdam.
Officials are battling to work out how the son of a millionaire banker who was born into a life of comfort and privilege turned to terror.
In the picture at the top of the page, taken in 2002, he is on one of two visits he made to London with his African school. Fellow pupils remember him as an almost saintly figure they nicknamed 'the Pope'.
Yet now, at the age of 23, he faces charges of trying to blow up an aircraft in a suicide attack on Christmas Day.
He tried to use a chemical-filled syringe to ignite an explosive device strapped to his leg on board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, but was overpowered by other passengers and crew.
Air passengers face months of hold-ups in the wake of the bomb attack thanks to new stringent security measures.
Scotland Yard and MI5 are delving into Abdulmutallab's London background amid claims that he was radicalised during his time studying in Britain.
They are also investigating whether he contacted radical Muslims here, according to reports. Mohammed Mutallab, his cousin, claims he was radicalised here.
It was also claimed he visited the East London Mosque, in Whitechapel, which has faced criticism for hosting hardline Islamic preachers.
Officials there said they were 'totally unaware' of whether he had visited and condemned the terror plot 'in the strongest possible terms'.
Secretary Ayub Khan said: 'Given its community service to people of all faiths, the East London Mosque is appalled that it should be associated with such heinous acts. Over 20,000 people, of Muslim and other faiths, visit the mosque every week.
'They use the mosque for many different purposes including worship, weddings, and to use any of the 30 different projects and services that are based at our institution.'
He added: 'The mosque is open for the public to use on a daily basis. We have no membership like a church and therefore cannot comment on whether this individual came to East London Mosque.
'Our institution is a place where people are inspired to do good works for all people, of all faiths and none. We therefore are appalled by the alleged actions of this individual.'
Earlier this year, the mosque was the venue for a video lecture by radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, with a poster depicting New York in flames, who allegedly inspired the Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan.
Mr al-Awlaki was barred from entering Britain on security grounds. The anti-extremist Quilliam Foundation said he was 'perhaps the most influential pro-jihadist ideologue preaching in English today'.
Anti-terrorism officers have been searching the Mutallab family's £2million flat in central London, and investigating his life in the capital, including where he prayed and potential associates.
Thousands of telephone calls and emails from Abdulmutallab, who belongs to one of Nigeria's richest families, during his time in London will be examined.
Abdulmutallab was on a U.S. watchlist and there were reports he that he might have previously 'crossed the radar' of the Security Service on the edge of another anti-terror inquiry.
It was not considered threatening enough to have warranted placing him under surveillance.
The U.S. ordered a series of draconian safety checks on all inbound aircraft following the foiled attempt on the Northwest Airlines flight.
Anxiety was further fuelled yesterday when a second Nigerian man was arrested travelling on the same service from Amsterdam to Detroit. He was later deemed not to be a security risk.
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