The Christmas Day attempted attack by would-be "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab provoked the U.S. government to plan to spend $1 billion for full body scanners and other bomb-detecting devices at airports.
The heads of major U.S. intelligence agencies told a Senate committee Tuesday that an attempted terrorist attack on the nation in coming months is "certain."
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Thursday for Wednesday's deadly attack, now thought to be a suicide bombing, in northwestern Pakistan that killed three U.S. military service members.
Another attempted terrorist attack on the United States in coming months is "certain," the heads of major U.S intelligence agencies told a Senate committee Tuesday.
Senior Obama administration officials revealed late Tuesday they've secretly gained the cooperation of family members of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to help get the Christmas Day airline bomb suspect talking.
The father of an al Qaeda suspect wrote to President Obama on Tuesday, urging him to reconsider an alleged order to capture or kill his son.
It took the United States government 18 months to capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- and seven years to figure out what to do with him.
At least 12 people were killed when a teenage suicide attacker blew himself up Saturday at a security checkpoint in northwest Pakistan, officials said.
A new audio tape allegedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claims responsibility for an attempt to blow up a plane en route to Michigan on Christmas Day and warns the United States of more attacks.
Britain raised its threat level Friday from substantial to severe, indicating a terrorist attack is "highly likely," Home Secretary Alan Johnson said.
The Christmas Day attempted attack by would-be "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab provoked the U.S. government to plan to spend $1 billion for full body scanners and other bomb-detecting devices at airports.
The heads of major U.S. intelligence agencies told a Senate committee Tuesday that an attempted terrorist attack on the nation in coming months is "certain."
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Thursday for Wednesday's deadly attack, now thought to be a suicide bombing, in northwestern Pakistan that killed three U.S. military service members.
Another attempted terrorist attack on the United States in coming months is "certain," the heads of major U.S intelligence agencies told a Senate committee Tuesday.
Senior Obama administration officials revealed late Tuesday they've secretly gained the cooperation of family members of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to help get the Christmas Day airline bomb suspect talking.
The father of an al Qaeda suspect wrote to President Obama on Tuesday, urging him to reconsider an alleged order to capture or kill his son.
It took the United States government 18 months to capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- and seven years to figure out what to do with him.
At least 12 people were killed when a teenage suicide attacker blew himself up Saturday at a security checkpoint in northwest Pakistan, officials said.
A new audio tape allegedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claims responsibility for an attempt to blow up a plane en route to Michigan on Christmas Day and warns the United States of more attacks.
Britain raised its threat level Friday from substantial to severe, indicating a terrorist attack is "highly likely," Home Secretary Alan Johnson said.
A Senate committee began its assessment of intelligence reforms put in place after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by focusing Wednesday on the alleged Christmas Day attack aboard a plane landing in Detroit, Michigan.
Britain is expanding its security watch list and has suspended all direct flights to Yemen as part of a series of new counterterrorism measures, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Wednesday.
The leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, was wounded in a suspected U.S. drone strike Thursday, intelligence and Taliban sources told CNN Friday.
At least 15 people were killed and 13 others wounded Thursday when a suicide bomber attacked a market in central Afghanistan, the provincial police chief said.
Kurt Haskell's eyes were locked on the seatback monitor in front of him when the words of a passing flight attendant caught his attention.
An early-morning hazardous material spill has been contained, but officials in Morehead City, North Carolina have closed its port and recommended evacuation of its downtown area after nine containers of high-explosive materials were punctured.
In the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253, authorities are ramping up air passenger screening, particularly for those flying from 14 nations that the U.S. describes as "state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest."
In the wake of the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner, most Americans remain confident the Obama administration can protect the country from terrorism, according to a new national poll.
His anguish apparent, the father of Anwar al-Awlaki told CNN that his son is not a member of al Qaeda and is not hiding out with terrorists in southern Yemen.
The U.S. military does not intend to put ground troops in Yemen, a country where al Qaeda operatives have become an increasing threat, Gen. David Petraeus told CNN in an interview to be aired Sunday.
The man believed to be the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees and contractors last month appears in a newly released video, in which he vows revenge for the killing of a Taliban leader.
Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab disappeared in Yemen for more than two months before he allegedly tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines jet with explosives concealed in his underwear.
Former President Reagan used the signature phrase "trust but verify" throughout his presidency.
Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the man charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on December 25, pleaded not guilty Friday to six federal charges.
The government had sufficient information to have potentially disrupted an al Qaeda plot to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day, but failed to identify Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab as a potential bomber, a White House review of the incident shows.
President Obama outlined Thursday the intelligence and other government failures leading up to the botched December 25 terror bombing of a U.S.-bound jetliner.
U.S. intelligence employees have received a letter from their boss mandating procedural changes intended to prevent future terrorist plots from succeeding.
It is one of several unconnected dots -- the State Department failed to determine that Christmas bombing suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab had a U.S. visa until after he nearly set off explosives on a U.S.-bound airplane.
A top U.S. intelligence official did take a shortened vacation two days after a botched terror attack on a U.S. passenger jet, but remained in constant contact with national security officials and the White House about the situation, a source told CNN Thursday.
President Obama on Thursday discussed the results of the reviews he requested after the botched Christmas terrorist attack. Here is a transcript of his speech.
The Underwear Bomber failed. And our reaction to the failed plot is failing as well, by focusing on the specifics of this made-for-a-movie plot rather than the broad threat. While our reaction is predictable, it's not going to make us safer.
A terror suspect in the attempted bombing of a U.S. jetliner was radicalized in Britain, but did meet with a radical Muslim Cleric in Yemen, a top government official said Thursday.
U.S. anti-terrorism officials are pushing to get more air marshals on American jetliners and beef up efforts to screen visa applicants overseas after some stinging criticism from President Obama.
Yemen's foreign minister says his government has not sufficiently focused on al Qaeda because it has turned its attention to insurgencies rocking the northern and southern regions there.
The suspect in the failed Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner faces a six-count federal indictment issued Wednesday, including an attempt to murder the other 289 people aboard.
The initial report ordered by President Obama on the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack will be released Thursday, Obama's spokesman said Wednesday.
Periodic revolts. Dwindling natural resources. Large, ungoverned spaces welcoming to jihadists plotting strikes on Western targets locally and abroad.
President Obama said Tuesday that U.S. intelligence has had considerable success, but that the botched Christmas Day attack shows "the system has failed" in a major way.
Five police officers were killed and at least 14 injured Wednesday in the Russian Republic of Dagestan after a suicide bomber detonated himself at a traffic police station, a Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman told CNN.
On the second page of the executive summary of the 9/11 commission report is a line we should all remember: "[T]he 9/11 attacks were a shock but they should not have been a surprise. Islamist extremists had given plenty of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers."
Sen. Chris Dodd The five-term Connecticut Democrat announced today that he will not seek re-election. Dodd, 65, has been winning congressional elections in his state since 1974, but he's recently been considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats seeking re-election in 2010. He has been criticized for ties to the financial industry, and several formidable challengers have been vying to challenge him in the November election.
The U.S. government has lowered the threshold for information deemed important enough to put suspicious individuals on a watch list or no-fly list, or have their visa revoked, senior State Department officials tell CNN.
In assessing blame for the Christmas Day terror scare, we point fingers at Yemen, at the Amsterdam airport, even at corruption in African airports. But no one mentions where the would-be suicide bomber was radicalized: London, the capital of the ally we take for granted.
The FBI attained "actionable intelligence" from bombing suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab in the first hours after his arrest on Christmas Day, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.
The United States is halting for now its plans to continue transferring terror suspects detained at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility to Yemen, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.
London's Heathrow Airport will introduce more body scanners within weeks, and all British airports must have equipment to detect explosives by the end of the year, British Home Secretary Alan Johnson said Tuesday.
In light of the botched Christmas Day airliner bombing aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, the Transportation Security Administration has announced new enhanced "guidelines" requiring airline passengers traveling from (and through) 14 different countries to undergo especially rigorous security screening before being able to fly into the United States.
In the wake of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, security experts, political commentators and the media have been asking one question: How can the United States prevent terrorists from smuggling homemade bombs through security?
The U.S. Embassy in Yemen, which was closed over the weekend because of security concerns, reopened Tuesday, a day after Yemeni forces conducted successful security operations.
Yemen, a rugged, poor country on the southern Arabian Peninsula, is emerging as a key theater in the international fight against terrorism.
The U.S. Embassy in Yemen, which was closed over the weekend due to security concerns, will reopen on Tuesday, a senior State Department official said late Monday.
Enhanced screening procedures for U.S.-bound air passengers traveling through "state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest" such as Pakistan, Yemen and Nigeria amount to religious profiling of Muslims, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday.
A federal appeals court on Monday affirmed the conviction and life sentence for convicted terrorist and 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
The United States' decision to close its embassy in Yemen came after intelligence suggested that four al Qaeda operatives may be planning an attack on the compound, a senior administration official said Monday.
President Obama on Saturday linked the man accused in a botched Christmas Day airline bombing to an al Qaeda affiliate based in Yemen.
Threats by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula against targets in Yemen prompted the closure of the U.S. and British embassies there Sunday, officials said.
Almost as soon as the botched Christmas airplane bombing hit the airwaves, the politics of national security reared its head.
Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, met with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Saturday in Yemen, according to a senior U.S. government source.
Just days after serving subpoenas to two travel bloggers, the Transportation Security Administration withdrew the subpoenas late Thursday, saying its investigation into how the bloggers received a sensitive security directive "is nearing a successful conclusion."
Terror suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab appears to have had direct contacts with radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN Thursday.
As a federal air marshal, Robert MacLean typically spent five days a week crisscrossing the country on commercial flights, reading a lot of newspapers and John Grisham novels while keeping an eye out and trying to appear inconspicuous.
Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian national who allegedly attempted to bomb a U.S. airliner over Michigan on Christmas day, became more devout about his Muslim faith while attending university in London, according to a former friend.
To understand how the suspect in the botched terror attack was able to board a plane, you have to understand how the counterterrorism system that President Obama says failed is supposed to work.
The full-body scanning technology being adopted and discussed since the attempt to take down a passenger plane on Christmas Day isn't a "magic machine" that will solve aviation security issues, experts say.
Qasim Rafiq had trouble reconciling the shocking news surrounding Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab with the college friend he knew: a pious and genuine person who was the president of an organization that condemned terrorist attacks.
A man described as "one of al Qaeda's most dangerous members" was arrested in Yemen, the Yemeni military, an embassy official and state-run news agency Saba said.
After a failed Christmas Day terrorist plot on a U.S.-bound international flight, the airline passenger screening process has received heavy scrutiny from the government, the media and the public.
The failed attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger airplane on December 25 has raised questions about the need for the introduction of full-body scanners at all major airports.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Wednesday for President Obama to reverse a policy established last year that kept the suspect in the Christmas Day botched jetliner bombing from having been placed on a no-fly list.
The man accused of trying to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day attended an Islamic "Knowledge Fest" in Houston, Texas, in 2008, according to one of the organizers of the event.
Airstrikes against al Qaeda targets in Yemen will be carried out only by the country's armed forces, the Yemeni foreign minister said Wednesday.
The White House responded forcefully Wednesday to former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of President Obama's response to the botched terror attack on Christmas Day.
We are now five days away from the attempted terrorist attack to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit, Michigan. We are learning more each day about the multiple failures in our security and intelligence system that preceded that attack.
How could a man who allegedly had explosives hidden in his underwear have been allowed to board a plane headed for the United States?
The attempted Christmas Day bombing of a commercial airliner has renewed questions of whether the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission have been taken seriously.
The Netherlands and Nigeria will begin using body scanners on airline passengers following the attempted terrorist attack on a U.S.-bound flight on Christmas Day, authorities in both nations said Wednesday.
The seven-hour flight from the Netherlands to Michigan had been uneventful. Passengers bided time watching movies or trying to catch shut eye.
"Let me tell you a little about me."
In a marked shift from previous positions, senior Obama administration officials now say they are starting to see an al Qaeda connection to the attempted terror attack on a U.S.-bound airliner.
In recent days, international attention has refocused on the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Yemen. The claim of responsibility for the attack on Northwest flight 253 on December 25 by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has underscored the fact that Yemen's problems will not stay in Yemen.
Erroll Southers In the aftermath of the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253, it is likely the Senate will move to confirm the embattled nomination of Southers as head of the Transportation Security Administration when it returns from its winter recess. Objections to Southers' confirmation were first made by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina over the potential unionization of TSA employees. Southers is the Los Angeles International Airport's assistant chief for homeland security and intelligence. The airport's police department, which Southers has helped manage since early 2007, is the largest such operation in the country, with approximately 1,200 employees. Southers is also associate director at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events at the University of Southern California. The former FBI special agent served as a deputy director of homeland security for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A suicide bomber critically wounded the governor of western Iraq's Anbar province Wednesday when he went to check on the victims of two car bombs that had gone off moments earlier, officials said.
Moments after President Obama said a "mix of human and systemic failures" allowed a man to try to bomb a passenger jet on Christmas Day, federal agencies said they had done all they could.
The most recent independent tests of airport checkpoints showed screener performance "falling off the charts," according to the top Republican on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Canada is immediately limiting carry-on items for flights to the United States in the aftermath of a failed terror attack on a Northwest Airlines flight.
The father of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab talked about his son's extremist views with someone from the CIA and a report was prepared, but the report was not circulated outside the agency, a reliable source told CNN's Jeanne Meserve on Tuesday.
Authorities in Yemen questioned people at a mosque and a school in the capital of Sanaa because the facilities were attended by attempted bombing suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the spokesman for Yemen's Embassy to the United States said Tuesday.
U.S. counterterrorism officials are investigating possible links between the attempted Northwest Airlines bombing and two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who say they are leaders in an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group based in Yemen, U.S. officials told CNN on Tuesday.
Below are key dates in the case of suspected terrorist Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, who is accused of trying to ignite bomb-making materials Friday aboard a Northwest Airlines flight on its descent into Detroit, Michigan.
Part of an explosive device that failed to take down a plane last week was sewn into the underwear of the Nigerian man accused of igniting it, a law enforcement official told CNN Monday.
"Solid intelligence" from U.S. and Yemen services finally persuaded Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh last summer to accept increased help in fighting al Qaeda in his country, a senior U.S. official told CNN.
Last week's attempted terror attack on an airplane heading from Amsterdam to Detroit has given rise to a bunch of familiar questions.
"Solid intelligence" from U.S. and Yemen services finally persuaded Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh last summer to accept increased help in fighting al Qaeda in his country, a senior U.S. official told CNN.
On August 28, the Saudi Arabian deputy minister of interior, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, survived a bombing attack launched by an al Qaeda cell based in Yemen, Saudi Arabia's southern neighbor.
I recently attended the White House Christmas tree lighting and congressional holiday party. Christmas is traditionally a time of peace and love, quite a juxtaposition for a nation fighting three wars, one in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and a global war on terror.
A U.S. counterterrorism official says there are "strong indications" a senior al Qaeda operation planner, Saleh al-Somali, was killed in a missile strike earlier this week.
Al Qaeda's umbrella group in Iraq on Thursday claimed responsibility for a string of suicide car bombings that killed 127 people and wounded 448.
Pakistan's prime minister Thursday rejected claims al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is hiding within his country amid mounting global pressure on Islamabad to tackle terrorists linked to escalating conflict in neighboring Afghanistan.
One person was killed and 11 others were wounded Wednesday when a suicide attacker blew himself up outside the entrance of the local naval headquarters in Pakistan's capital, a senior government official said.
Five Florida men convicted of plotting terrorist acts with al Qaeda were sentenced Friday to long prison terms, the Department of Justice announced.
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