By Jackie Frank
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration admitted on Monday that air travel security failed when a Nigerian man with suspected ties to Islamic militants allegedly was able to smuggle explosives onto a U.S.-bound flight in an attempt to blow it up.
Asked on NBC's "Today Show" on Monday if the security system "failed miserably," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano replied: "It did."
The family of 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is facing charges in the Christmas Day incident aboard the Amsterdam to Detroit flight, said they had reported his disappearance to security agencies months ago after becoming concerned about his increasing militancy.
Under U.S. questioning, the suspect claimed al Qaeda operatives in Yemen supplied him with an explosive device and trained him on how to detonate it, an official said.
Abdulmutallab, who was travelling with a valid U.S. visa although he was on a broad U.S. list of possible security threats, was overpowered by passengers and crew on the Northwest Airlines flight 253 after setting alight an explosive device attached to his body. He was treated for burns and is in federal prison awaiting trial in the incident.
President Barack Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, is under pressure from opposition Republicans who have been critical of his response to the scare and have questioned whether his administration is doing enough to contain security threats. The Democratic president was scheduled to make his first public statement on the incident later on Monday.
The December 25 scare dashed Obama's hope of spending his vacation basking in the afterglow of the Senate's passage of healthcare reform, his signature domestic issue, and switching gears to focus on U.S. job growth as he wraps up his first year in office.
Instead, the White House has spent the past few days seeking to reassure the public that the president is paying close attention and is focussed on keeping Americans safe.
SECURITY LISTS AND SCREENING
The security scare drove airline stocks down in New York. AMR Corp, the parent of American Airlines, lost 4.8 percent to $7.75, while Delta Air Lines Inc dropped 4.4 percent to $11.25. The NYSE Arca Airline index shed 1.7 percent.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration said it had stepped up pre-flight screening in the United States and Europe. The TSA did not give details, but air travelers described new restrictions on flights headed for the United States, including additional pre-flight screening, and -- an hour before landing -- a ban on movement around the cabin and on having items such as blankets on passengers' laps.
In Amsterdam, Dutch airport authorities said they planned to make new, more sensitive passenger scanners mandatory after Abdulmutallab allegedly smuggled explosives in his underwear through Schiphol Airport security.
On Sunday, Napolitano said the system to protect air travel worked, but in appearances on news shows on Monday she said she had meant that the response to alert other flights and airports and impose immediate new safety procedures had been effective.
Napolitano was asked on NBC on Monday if the suspected attempt to destroy a plane represented a new form of threat that the screening system was not equipped to handle.
"I wouldn't go that far," she said. "What I would say is that our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on ABC on Sunday: "There's much to investigate here. It's amazing to me that an individual like this who was sending out so many signals could end up getting on a plane going to the U.S."
Senate Homeland Security chairman Joe Lieberman, an independent who usually votes with Democrats, said he plans a January hearing on how Abdulmutallab apparently evaded security, including why he was not checked against what the senator said was "our broadest list of suspected terrorists" and why body-imaging scanners are not used on more passengers.
FAMILY CONCERNS IN NIGERIA
Abdulmutallab's father, a respected Nigerian banker, had told U.S. officials he was concerned that his son's radicalized behaviour could pose a threat, and his name was on a broad U.S. list of possible security threats. But he was not on the much smaller "no fly" list.
The Mutallab family said in a statement: "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."
It said the fact that he had ended communication with his family was "completely out of character and a very recent development."
Nigerian media had quoted family members as saying the father had been uncomfortable with his son's "extreme religious views" and had reported him to the U.S. embassy.
The first federal court hearing for the suspect, at which U.S. Attorneys had been expected to seek a search warrant to collect a swab of DNA from the suspect, had been scheduled for Monday in Detroit but was cancelled, a spokeswoman for prosecutors said. No reason was given for the cancellation.
Bail for Abdulmutallab is scheduled to be set at a January 8 hearing.
Dutch military police said they were investigating the possibility that Abdulmutallab might have had help from an accomplice before boarding the flight in Amsterdam.
"At this moment we have no information on whether there was another guy," a military police spokesman said. "We are checking all clues and information we get."
(Additional reporting by Debbie Charles and Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Bernie Woodall in Detroit; Chuck Mikolajczak in New York and Camillus Eboh in Abuja; Writing by Jackie Frank, editing by Frances Kerry)
