Authorities Warn of Female Suicide Bombers
[Guest post by DRJ]
ABC News reports American law enforcement has warned that Al Qaeda in Yemen has at least two female suicide bombers with Western passports and non-Arab appearance:
“They have trained women,” said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.
There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins — that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men,” said Clarke.”
Plus there have been an increased number of passengers prevented from flying because they are on the No-Fly list. Either the system is working better or there are more attempts to probe American security:
“The alert comes during a week in which American law enforcement officials described an “unusually high” number of people on the no-fly list attempting to board flights to or in the United States.
At least six people on the no-fly list were denied boarding in a 48-hour period between Saturday and Monday this week, according to the officials.”
Some of the passengers were attempting to fly to or from several American cities:
“Two of the six were stopped at London’s Heathrow Airport.
On Saturday, an Egyptian man on the no-fly list was stopped from flying on American Airlines flight 113 from London to Miami.
The next day, Sunday, a Saudi Arabian passenger was stopped from boarding United Airlines flight 929 to Chicago. Officials said the man was sent back to Saudi Arabia by the British.
In two other overseas cases involving people on the no-fly list, a man in Nairobi, Kenya was kept off a flight Sunday that would have connected in Amsterdam to Dallas, and a passenger attempting to fly on American Airlines to Los Angeles was stopped in Saint Maarten before he could board a connecting flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to officials.
American officials say there were two additional incidents, in Minneapolis and in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in which people on the no-fly list were denied boarding, questioned and then allowed to leave the airport without being detained.”
Officials also verified passenger reports from the Christmas Day flight that someone helped Abdulmutallab change planes in Amsterdam.
— DRJ
unfortunately, al qaeda seems able to move into just about any muslim country that lacks a strong central government and set up shop, using their financial base in the muslim countries that do have strong(ish) central governments for the logistics. The strongest vigilance still needs to be maintained. The underwear bomber was a horrendous lapse but reports like this underscore the fact that our security agencies and those of our allies are not failing for lack of honest effort (save at the top) and are on the whole succeeding. But if we don’t go after their bases or our allies don’t, there will be and endless supply of bodies for attacks, and in that situation it is inevitable that one will succeed. Obama’s policies in regards to the military aspect of the struggle promise nothing better than stalemate, which is a victory for a bin laden.
Chaos (7c068a) — 1/23/2010 @ 10:19 pmBack in December, al-Zawahiri’s wife publicly made a statement that Muslim women were “obligated” to join jihad, to the point of becoming suicide bombers.
First though, she reminded women that their primary role is that of bearing and breeding a jihadic fighter’s sons. She counsels women to support jihad by keeping the warrior’s secrets and his home, and by wearing hijab. She also disapproves of women going out without a male escort or guide.
But strapping on a bomb and killing innocent people is an obligation.
There was also the suggestion that al-Qaida is short combat personnel and resorting to this extreme.
Bitter irony: Muslim women are finally being given the same opportunity as the men.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 1/23/2010 @ 10:28 pmSo, Mr. Haskell did see and hear what he thought he saw and heard. Mr. Nice suit helping the hapless Abdullmatallab.
SarahW (692fc6) — 1/23/2010 @ 10:29 pm“Al Qaeda in Yemen has at least two female suicide bombers with Western passports and non-Arab appearance”
Code Pink Crapweasels? They’ll do anything!
daleyrocks (718861) — 1/23/2010 @ 10:37 pmdana, i think far too few people know about or understand how ruthless al qaeda is. In iraq they would get car bombs past checkpoints by putting children in the car, then parked the car at the market and left. With the kids still inside. Theyd still be there when the bomb exploded a few minutes later. They will do anything, absolutely anything, to pull off a successful operation. The bush administration failed pretty miserably at really showing the american people how savage the enemy is, after the shock and memory of september 11th started to fade.
Chaos (7c068a) — 1/23/2010 @ 10:39 pmThe bush administration failed pretty miserably at really showing the american people how savage the enemy is, after the shock and memory of september 11th started to fade.
I think there was/is a huge part of the population that doesn’t want to know or are unable to absorb and grasp such a concept. Therefore they deny, or try to lessen the severity of the evil by believing that peace accords and talking out the differences is a reasonable approach…because the the whitewashed enemy really isn’t that evil — mostly misunderstood. And it’s our own narrow-mindedness and imperialism that has *driven* them to this…blah, blah, blah.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 1/23/2010 @ 10:56 pmChaos said:
The bush administration failed pretty miserably at really showing the american people how savage the enemy is, after the shock and memory of september 11th started to fade.
I have no doubt of the sincerity of your comment and, I’m only speaking for me, but how could the shock and memory of 9-11 fade for those who experienced it?
I think about it every time there is a pristine blue sky.
I know a lot of people criticized President Bush for saying we should go on with our lives. But, seriously, how can anything he could say or do trump the evident savagery of 9-11?
I think the simple fact of flying airliners into the WTC towers and the Pentagon were quite enough for most rational people to be able to understand the enemy we face. Did Bush really need to say, “Hey folks, you ain’t seen nothing yet?”
Ag80 (1592cc) — 1/24/2010 @ 12:15 amYou’ve come a long way, baby!
Maybe that’s the path of liberation for today’s muslim woman. I mean if women can blow themselves up for Allah just like their male counterparts, shouldn’t they have rights and privileges similar to those of male jihadis? I’m just sayin.’
clark smith (ac1675) — 1/24/2010 @ 12:42 amSo, Homeland Security has been proven to lie to us yet again. Yet now we are supposed to believe every threat at face value. This is so damn twisted and awful. Of course, not every threat proves out and the public refuses to accept the real evils out there.
Ed from SFV (f6a87d) — 1/24/2010 @ 1:14 amFrom the report it sounds like the people were just turned away after questioning. Shouldn’t they have been searched/evaluated for carrying a bomb? Isn’t being on a watch list (assuming adequate reason for being on it) probable cause for a search? Perhaps they were and it just doesn’t say.
I doubt every instance of someone on the watch list trying to board a plane has a bomb, but for those who do it would be nice to find it, investigate, and interrogate.
Of course, once they realize they will be found out they may try to detonate it while in custody, and they’ll need to be prepared for that.
MD in Philly (d4668b) — 1/24/2010 @ 5:43 amI don’t think this was the fault of the administration so much as the “filters” put in place by the media to “protect” us from recalling the horrors of the NYC attack. Remember, the networks refused to show footage of the WTC tower collapses on the anniversaries of 9/11. When the Bush administration raised the terror alert on the basis of intelligence information, they were accused of “playing on our fears” for political purposes. Videos from the terrorists are edited so citizens cannot see their cruel and inhumane actions. Reporters refuse to even name the enemy as Muslim extremists.
Eventually, the country will wake up to the fact that this is a war that will not go away. Unfortunately, it may require another successful attack — with more Americans dead — to bring that point home.
navyvet (e4db05) — 1/24/2010 @ 6:24 amI’m still waiting for the time when our vaunted security doofuses finally begin to wake up and talk to the Israelis about their passenger screening procedures. They’ve been dealing with women suicide bombers for years at this point, and less than two decades ago they almost succeeded by planting a plastic explosive on a Muslim woman who was pregnant, and just when she was about to board the El Al plane they caught her. The worst thing about this event? She had no idea she was carrying a bomb. Talk about ruthless.
Remember, the networks refused to show footage of the WTC tower collapses on the anniversaries of 9/11.
Yep, and I distinctly remember how the MSM intitiated a complete black – out after 9/11 of the footage showing bodies falling from the towers. They claimed that witnessing such video was too “explosive and needlessly violent” for the US public. What a complete crock of crapola that was – this, from the same media that gives you explosions and murders on a nightly basis during their news and prime time hours. And has no compunction about endlessly showing footage of prisoners having their heads covered in cloth, or those nasty german shepherds barking at the poor little terrorist dears. Ohhh, look at the bad US military, look at how awful they are!
Dmac (539341) — 1/24/2010 @ 6:51 amDo the girls get 72 virgins too?
JEA (514590) — 1/24/2010 @ 7:07 am[…] tip: DRJ at Patterico) Sphere: Related Content Share on: Facebook | digg_url = […]
Maybe Some Good Came Out Of The Undiebomber’s Interrogation - scipio62’s blog - RedState (8eaf85) — 1/24/2010 @ 7:11 amDmac, that was not a Muslim woman in the El Al attempt. She was an Irish girl who had been seduced by a Palestinian guy and she thought she was going to Jordan to meet his family before they were married.
I would still like to have the chance to see “Path to 9/11” again. That has been suppressed by ABC for years now.
Mike K (2cf494) — 1/24/2010 @ 7:12 amWonder if the woman’s name is Ellie Light.
Beth Donovan (fafcba) — 1/24/2010 @ 7:33 am“The bush administration failed pretty miserably at really showing the american people how savage the enemy is, after the shock and memory of september 11th started to fade.”
Knowing that the older brother of my high school classmate/varsity basketball team mate was the captain of AA Flight 77 and that the spouses of several work colleagues in Middletown, NJ were victims along with the rest of the innocents has burned this memory in permanently.
It’s really the politically correct media who made the decision to refrain from showing the true horror of that day.
GeneralMalaise (c840dd) — 1/24/2010 @ 8:06 amThanks for the correction, Mike – and it was a Jordanian man who was involved, not a Palestinian.
Dmac (539341) — 1/24/2010 @ 8:19 amJEA — would you want to curse a woman with the performance anxiety that would accompany 72 male virgins?
WLS Shipwrecked (3d3fb8) — 1/24/2010 @ 8:27 amCurious how the Obama Admin. is now in such a hurry to let the public know through leaked information how “successful” it is being at keeping people on the “no fly” lists from boarding airplanes for the US.
There was a time when such operation information was kept confidential.
WLS Shipwrecked (3d3fb8) — 1/24/2010 @ 8:28 amIn the “is it too much to ask” department: if a person on the no-fly list tries to board an airliner, shouldn’t that person be a) frisked b) questioned c) detained d) sent to either Guantanamo or Ice Station Zebra and e) have his/her life carefully examined by experienced interrogators?
Okay, you might not get (d) and (e) but a person on the no-fly list is, in my mind, a potential terrorist. If a potential terrorist walks into an airport with a ticket in hand, he or she is just asking to be detained. So why aren’t we doing that?
Steve White (6e673b) — 1/24/2010 @ 8:38 am“Okay, you might not get (d) and (e) but a person on the no-fly list is, in my mind, a potential terrorist. If a potential terrorist walks into an airport with a ticket in hand, he or she is just asking to be detained. So why aren’t we doing that?”
Because the no-fly list isn’t meant to be for people to be detained. It has people like Cat Stevens on it. It actually is fantastic that there is a list of people who cannot fly but who we are not trying to detain.
imdw (e66d8d) — 1/24/2010 @ 8:44 amImdw seems intent on proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how fundamentally un-serious it is.
JD (867246) — 1/24/2010 @ 9:02 am“Because the no-fly list isn’t meant to be for people to be detained. It has people like Cat Stevens on it. It actually is fantastic that there is a list of people who cannot fly but who we are not trying to detain.”
Sorry, it’s Yusuf “Ooh, baby, baby, it’s a suicide world” Islam now.
GeneralMalaise (c840dd) — 1/24/2010 @ 9:50 amIt’s just a matter of time, before AQ is successful.
And, Obozo will blame BusHitler for the coming terrorism as well…
Teetop (1f1551) — 1/24/2010 @ 9:58 amA man walks into an adult novelty store near Times Square in New York. He tells the salesman behind the counter that he wants to buy an inflatable doll.
The salesman asks, “Male or female?”
The customer says, “Female.”
The salesman asks, “White or black?”
The customer says, “White.”
The salesman asks, “Christian or Muslim?”
The customer is shocked and says, “What does religion have to do with it?”
The salesman says, “The Muslim one blows itself up.”
Official Internet Data Office (e46847) — 1/24/2010 @ 10:04 amAre these terrorists totally stupid? In today’s politically correct world, the last thing you want to appear as is non-muslim. When you see 80 year old grandmothers on a walker being stripped searched, but see mohamit wearing a turban with a sign that says I have a bomb being casually waved thru checkpoints, it makes u wonder doesn’t it.
peedoffamerican (7f3c14) — 1/24/2010 @ 10:10 amFollowing up on WLS’s comment at #20, there was a time when we would have seen the processing of airline passangers as an unparalleled opportunity to catch jihadi terrorists.
It’s one of the few times and places where they have to come out into the open. There are any number of steps which could be taken to spot the terrorists and capture them if we were willing to attack our enemies instead of passively waiting for them to strike first.
ropelight (6f23f4) — 1/24/2010 @ 10:26 amI’m not saying that AQ isn’t doing something like that. But why would they need to? But you know, the Christmas bomber not only fit the profile, but we had in our posession specific actionable intelligence telling us to worry about him in particular, so much that our authorities figured out there was an issue while the plane was in the air, and decided the correct answer was to wait until he landed. So I would ask, why would AQ bother to recruit anyone else?
Which doesn’t mean that the story is wrong, but fwiw.
A.W. (f97997) — 1/24/2010 @ 10:47 amThis isn’t a refutation of what I said, it’s your explanation of your own special circumstances that give you greater reason than a random American to be more moved by that day a decade later.
None of that is an excuse for the Bush Administration’s incompetence in communications. So he faced a hostile media environment. He was the president of the United States. Great presidents – particularly Lincoln and Reagan – faced hostile presses, Lincoln the most hostile press in US history (he had plenty of support in the press too) – and they transcended the press to make a direct connection with the people. Other than in the first few months after September 11th, Bush never managed that. You can’t blame the media for it.
Yes obviously direct experience will create a stronger impact, how that has anything to do with what I said is a mystery.
That’s PTSD, or you’re just plain weird. Sorry. You think about September 11th ‘every time’ you see a cloudless sky? That’s creepy.
Yes, he did, unless you think that war fatigue is an invention of the mainstream media and that large majorities of Americans still support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the GOP won smashing victories in 2006 and 2008. Take the blinders off people. The man was brilliant in the immediate aftermath. He was brilliant during his re-election campaign. Other than that, he said the same things over and over and over again, people got bored and sick of it, war fatigue crept in, and he didn’t do as good a job as he could have or should have to combat it.
chaos (9c54c6) — 1/24/2010 @ 12:14 pm“Other than that, he said the same things over and over and over again, people got bored and sick of it, war fatigue crept in, and he didn’t do as good a job as he could have or should have to combat it.”
I don’t disagree with the substance of that, but to his credit, GWB did make some memorable speeches that didn’t make the headlines and certainly weren’t treated with the respect or seriousness that today’s fawning media give the Big Zero’s every utterance.
And – more importantly – I knew that GWB meant what he said. We won’t see another like him, at least in my lifetime.
GeneralMalaise (919990) — 1/24/2010 @ 1:04 pmHe also did a damn good job creating a strong alliance with India, which Obama has promptly allowed to decay.
chaos (9c54c6) — 1/24/2010 @ 2:02 pmNo. 7, you’re right that none of us who were at Ground Zero on 9-11 will every forget, but anyone who was well away from New York hasn’t really been reminded…the news media have put a virtual blackout on broadcasting any of the footage from that day.
sam (5ef311) — 1/24/2010 @ 2:56 pmIt’s official, I’m weird and creepy.
I’ll tell my wife, but she will probably say “And?”
Ag80 (1592cc) — 1/24/2010 @ 10:14 pm[…] Additional important reading from Patterico’s Pontifications, Authorities Warn of Female Suicide Bombers. […]
Osama Bin Laden Taking Credit for Christmas Day “Underwear Bomber” Plot « Frugal Café Blog Zone (a66042) — 1/25/2010 @ 6:44 amSavage people deserve savage treatment.
Our troops should not deliver savage treatment of course, but we have foreign and non-military allies who would be willing to do so.
Michael Ejercito (b0a575) — 1/25/2010 @ 3:19 pmSo what is the use of a no-fly list then?
it is like having a list of people who are not allowed to possess firearms, but refusing to at least detain them until their identity can be verified more thoroughly
Michael Ejercito (b0a575) — 1/25/2010 @ 3:23 pm“So what is the use of a no-fly list then? ”
A fairer question is “what is the use of having the sort of no fly list that Cat Stevens is on.” And there really isn’t much of an answer to that.
imdw (603c39) — 1/25/2010 @ 3:41 pmIt’s overinclusive because we are suspicious and very careful. If we are underinclusive that brings up other, worse problems. We can’t be perfect.
Not that Cat Stevens is really on a no-fly list. Yusuf Islam is on the list. “”Yusuf Islam has been placed on the watch lists because of activities that could potentially be related to terrorism,” [Homeland Security spokesman] Doyle said. “It’s a serious matter.” ”
You mean to tell me we put people on the list for suspicious activities related to terrorism, even if they were famous singers a long time ago?
Indeed, there is no answer to that other than “This makes a lot of sense”.
Now, there are a lot of problems with the no-fly list. For one, terrorists could change their bloody name. Cat Stevens probably should be on the no-fly list if the government actually found something suspicious about him. This guy supported the death fatwah against Rushdie.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/25/2010 @ 4:01 pmComment by Dmac — 1/24/2010 @ 8:19 am
If an Arab from the West Bank is a Palestinian, why isn’t an Arab from the East Bank a Palestinian?
AD - RtR/OS! (a1830d) — 1/25/2010 @ 4:19 pm