Hillarysworld

(AFP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — A Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a passenger jet on Christmas Day has told investigators a radical US-born Yemeni cleric directed him to explode the bomb over US soil, CBS News reported.

Senior officials said this week that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been cooperating with interrogators after counter-terrorism officials enlisted some of his relatives in a bid to get him to talk.

According to a law enforcement source cited by CBS, Abdulmutallab has told investigators he obtained the powerful explosives PETN and TATP -- which were found in his underwear after the failed attack -- in Yemen.

He was then left to decide when and how to bring down an aircraft.

Abdulmutallab said Anwar al-Awlaqi, a radical preacher believed to be holed up in the remote mountains of Yemen, told him to detonate the underwear bomb over US soil, the source told CBS.

However passengers and crew overpowered him just in time to avert disaster as the plane carrying nearly 300 people made its descent to Detroit.

In an interview published by Al-Jazeera earlier this week, Awlaqi praised the plot and called Abdulmutallab his "student," although he said he did not direct the 23-year-old Nigerian to launch the attack.

Abdulmutallab's about-face to cooperate with US federal investigators could help authorities arrest or kill Awlaqi.

Citing its law enforcement source, CBS News said Awlaqi appears to play a leadership role in selecting targets and directing attacks for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- the Al-Qaeda affiliate which officials here say trained Abdulmutallab.

The cleric had previously been considered a less active player constrained to providing religious guidance and justification for the group's operations.

Awlaqi has been linked to Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in November.

The pair reportedly exchanged emails before the incident.

More . . .

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Worrisome that this is a US-born cleric.