U.S. says Nigerian man tried to attack plane

DETROIT (Reuters) - A Nigerian MAN (MAN.XE)with possible links to al Qaeda militants was in custody on Saturday after he tried to ignite an explosive device on a U.S. passenger plane as it approached Detroit, U.S. officials said.

The suspect, who suffered extensive burns, was overpowered by passengers and crew on the Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam. The passengers, two of whom suffered minor injuries, disembarked safely from the Delta Air Lines plane.

"We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism," a White House official told Reuters.

Investigators were trying to ascertain the man's claims that he has links to al Qaeda.

Representative Peter King of New York, the senior Republican on the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said the explosive device was "fairly sophisticated," and the suspect was a 23-year-old Nigerian.

King told CNN the suspect was listed in a database as having a connection to militants.

"My understanding is ... that he does have al Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search. "I would say we dropped the ball on this one."

King said investigators were looking into whether the incident was part of a larger plot. There is a "world-wide alert to make sure this is not part of a larger overall scheme," he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii with his family, was receiving regular updates and instructed officials to step up air travel security, the White House said. Television footage showed long security lines at Detroit's airport on Saturday.

It also is the latest in a string of terrorism-related plots in the United States over the past few months. Al Qaeda militants carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Citing U.S. officials, the Wall Street Journal said the Nigerian had told investigators that al Qaeda operatives in Yemen had given him the device and instructions on how to detonate it.

But NBC, citing anti-terrorism officials, said he claimed to have been acting on his own.

Federal officials identified the man as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, according to U.S. newspapers. ABC News and NBC News reported that he attends University College London, where he studied engineering.

British police were searching premises in central London on Saturday in connection with the incident. The man was believed to have spent time in Britain as a student and authorities were trying to establish details about his activities in the country, a British counter-terrorism source said.

TIGHTER AIRPORT SECURITY

Dutch counter-terrorism agency NCTb said the man boarded a KLM flight from Lagos to Amsterdam, and went through a security checkpoint while in transit at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

NCTb said in a statement it could not rule out the potential for dangerous items to be brought on board, "especially objects that with the current security technology such as metal detectors are difficult to detect.

European airports tightened security checks on U.S.-bound flights in response to the failed attack.

Northwest Airlines flight 253 left Amsterdam airport on Friday with 278 passengers onboard and was approaching its destination Detroit when the man tried to ignite the device or mixture, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was boosting security at airports for domestic and international flights after the incident and advised passengers they may experience more scrutiny.

One DHS official said they have a range of security measures available that they can implement as needed, from bomb-sniffing dogs to behaviour detection as well as other techniques that are seen and unseen.

"The mix is meant to be unpredictable so passengers aren't seeing the same thing at airports," the official said, declining further identification.

This weekend is supposed to be one of the busiest of the year because of Christmas travel. Severe winter storms across much of the central United States had already led to a number of flight cancellations and delays.

The Nigerian government ordered security agencies to investigate the incident and said they would cooperate fully with the American authorities.

"All the necessary security measures are in place in Nigeria. Any passenger, including crew members, on any flight is subject to the same security screening," a spokesman for Nigeria's Federal Airport Authority said.

'TERRIFYING'

The New York Times, citing a senior Homeland Security official, said the device was made from a mixture of powder and liquid and was more incendiary than explosive.

The official said Abdulmutallab told law enforcement authorities he had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe filled with chemicals to mix with the powder in an attempt to cause an explosion."

Passenger Richelle Keepman, arriving in Detroit, said the incident was terrifying.

"I thought -- I think we all thought we weren't going to land, we weren't going to make it," Keepman told NBC News.

Another passenger, Melinda Dennis, said the man was severely burnt.

"His entire leg was burnt. They required a fire extinguisher as well as water to put it out," she told NBC.

"You could smell the smoke when we landed. You could smell the scent of something being burnt when we landed."

Once on the ground, the aircraft was moved to a remote area at Detroit's airport where all baggage was being rescreened, the Transportation Security Administration said.

The attempt appeared similar to one eight years ago when a British-born man, Richard Reid, tried but failed to blow up a trans-Atlantic jumbo jet by lighting explosives stuffed into his shoes. Reid, a follower of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

(Additional reporting by Todd Eastham, Jeremy Pelofsky, Mohammad Zargham and Jim Wolf in Washington; Peter Bohan in Chicago; Ben Berkowitz in Amsterdam, Rosalba O'Brien and William Maclean in London; Additional writing by Emily Kaiser in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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