“Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab” on The Daily Caller

On September 11, 2001, Britain’s then-prime minister, Tony Blair, stated that the United Kingdom stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the United States in its time of internal and external crisis. (more)

DETROIT (AP) — Incriminating statements by a Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a plane near Detroit can be used against him at trial, a judge said Thursday. (more)

We all breathed a sigh of relief when the ball fell in New York’s Times Square and the holiday season this year ended without another terror attack — or attempted attack — on our homeland. You’ll recall that on Christmas Day 2009, the notorious “underwear bomber” tried to blow up his jet over Detroit. Young Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian citizen, wanted to take down his Northwest Airlines flight right over Detroit’s airport. Had he succeeded in detonating his BVDs, his victims would not only have been the 288 passengers and crew he was flying with, but doubtless hundreds or thousands on the ground. (more)

A year after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials say they have made it easier to add individuals’ names to a terrorist watch list and improved the government’s ability to thwart an attack in the United States. (more)

Security at Yemen’s main radioactive material storage facility was so lax, that the one guard on duty had been removed, while its only security camera had been broken for six months, according a leaked US embassy cable. (more)

“If you see something, say something,” our national security officials are fond of telling us. Indeed, the idea that ordinary citizens should be vigilant in spotting suspicious behavior was broadly encouraged long before this handy slogan was popularized. In the days after 9/11, as the anthrax scare ramped up, President George W. Bush was pressed by reporters as to just what sort of things folks should be looking for. The exhausted commander-in-chief replied, in a wordier iteration of the current motto, “If you find a person that you’ve never seen before getting in a crop duster that doesn’t belong to you — report it.” (more)

When she ascended to her position as Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano let it be known that the “War on Terror” was over. Instead, she decreed, America would conduct an “Overseas Contingency Operation,” in order to avert “man-caused disasters,” of the type we experienced on 9/11. (more)

’Tis the season to celebrate the annual festive tradition of refusing to call Christmas “Christmas.” (more)

Traditionally, Thanksgiving marks the official start of what has become known in America as “the holidays”: From the celebration of the Islamic New Year to Christian Christmas, and the African heritage festival of Kwanza, it is a season for loving, giving, and sharing. (more)

Last Christmas, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate plastic explosives on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, but was subdued thanks to the quick action of his fellow passengers. A shock to the American people — particularly given the otherwise peaceful holiday — the attempt has sparked an attention to airline security not seen since 9/11. (more)

I arrived at the Los Angeles Airport more than an hour early. I had made good time on the highway. I wasn’t checking any bags, so with my boarding pass in hand I proceeded to the gate. I was greeted with a security line that was almost an hour long. The line snaked around the terminal, out the door, and stretched down the sidewalk. At the front of the line sat a lone Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer studiously checking identification with a jeweler’s loupe, the small magnifying glass jewelers use to look for flaws in gemstones. (more)

The chattering class is all atwitter over a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll which found that “49 percent of all Americans say they have generally unfavorable opinions of Islam, compared with 37 percent who say they have favorable ones,” the highest such unfavorable rating since pollsters began asking the question in October 2001, just one month after the assault on the Twin Towers. (more)

As the U.S. struggles to manage its efforts to influence opinion about Al Qaeda abroad, Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula has produced its first English-language propaganda magazine. (more)

NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities say two New Jersey men arrested at a New York City airport on their way to join a jihadist group in Somalia had previously tried to get into Iraq. (more)

It’s not easy being dumb. It never has been. We’re made fun of in school. We’re the butt of jokes. Prejudice has barred us from many vocations. (more)

If you thought the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court did not affect you or have an impact on our society, think again. All Americans should be concerned that the current administration is re-thinking the constitutionality of the public safety exception before Mirandizing a person suspected of a terrorist or unlawful attack. Our country enters its ninth year of waging a war that so far has not affected most Americans. However, this needs to change and it will soon need to be a kitchen-table conversation everywhere. (more)

New videos produced by al Qaeda in Yemen show the accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and others in his training class firing weapons at a desert camp whose targets included the Jewish star, the British Union Jack and the letters “UN.” (more)

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After five weeks of exercising his “right to remain silent,” the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has finally begun cooperating, and according to The Washington Post is now “providing FBI interrogators with useful intelligence about his training and contacts.” Administration officials are hawking this development as a vindication of their patient approach to Abdulmutallab’s questioning. The Post even declares that this “[r]esult counters recent criticism of the case’s handling.” (more)

The family of the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a jetliner on Christmas Day helped persuade the suspect to cooperate with U.S. investigators, an administration official said yesterday. (more)