The Making Of A Bomber

When he boarded the plane in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, his mien and carriage portrayed innocence. This conferred on Farouk Abdulmutallab, son of Alhaji Umar Mutallab, former chairman of First Bank Nigeria plc, a degree of evasiveness. And this appears to be his strength. The 23-year-old was considered incapable of causing any harm until last Christmas when Farouk, in a failed attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airline, was caught with an explosive device that contained pentaerythritol tetra nitrate, PETN.

Farouk had bought a Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit-Lagos ticket of KLM Airline in Accra, Ghana. He then returned to Lagos afterwards to travel to Amsterdam, reportedly without luggage. At Amsterdam, Farouk was believed to have obtained the material necessary to assemble his explosive. Thereafter, he boarded the Detroit-bound Northwest Airline flight 253 from Amsterdam.

While in the plane, Farouk reportedly visited the rest room frequently. At a point, he returned to his seat, behaved as if he had a stomach upset and covered himself up with a blanket. Suddenly, fire erupted from his thigh region and other passengers became startled. However, Jaspter Schuringa, a Dutch tourist, noticed the mischief in Farouk. He lunged himself on Farouk, putting out the fire before alerting the cabin crew. “I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away,” Schuringa said. Farouk was promptly arrested and taken to the Ann Arbor University Hospital, where he was treated for burns sustained during the misadventure. He was subsequently arraigned and charged with attempting to destroy an aircraft and placing a destructive device in the plane.

Farouk admitted he has ties with the al-Qaeda network, corroborating an earlier statement by the group that it was responsible for the attack. Though he faces a $250,000 fine and up to 20 years in prison, if convicted, Farouk remains recalcitrant. Three days after his attempt to bomb the airline and all of its passengers and 11 crew members was thwarted, he reportedly declared that even if he is prosecuted and jailed, other trained terrorists would finish the job very soon.

http://thenewsng.com/announce/the-making-of-a-bomber/2010/01?version=print