Air marshals rush to stop 'dozens' of suicide attacks

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Hundreds of air marshals have been diverted onto inbound flights to the United States amid fears a dozen or more terrorists are preparing suicide missions.

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 6:25PM GMT 07 Jan 2010

Officials said intelligence reports and interviews with the Nigerian accused of trying to detonate explosives on a flight to Detroit, suggested other young men had been trained by al-Qaeda-linked groups.

President Barack Obama has reportedly ordered almost all the 3,200 existing air marshals, who are armed and work undercover, to be deployed to incoming flights by US airlines by Feb 1.

Agents from other law enforcement agencies would be called up to fill the gaps left on domestic flights that are deemed high risk.

"The rush is to get our people in place before they get theirs launched," a senior law enforcement official told ABC News. US government sources however said that no specific imminent threat had been detected.

The president was last night due to detail further security measures and provide more information on mistakes by US security agencies that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day with explosives sewn into his underwear.

Gen James Jones, the national security adviser, told USA Today that Americans would feel a "certain shock" when they read the preliminary investigation into missed clues that could have prevented the botched attack.

Noting the bid to destroy the airliner carrying 289 people, and the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas in November by a Muslim army psychiatrist, Gen Jones said: "That's two strikes."

He added that the president "certainly doesn't want that third strike, and neither does anybody else".

Homeland Security officials said they had flagged Abdulmutallab as someone who should go through additional security screening upon landing. In a statement, the department said the alleged bomber's potential ties to extremists came up in a routine check of passengers en route to the US from overseas.

The Los Angeles Times reported that border agents were even ready to question Abdulmutallab upon his arrival after discovering his name on a database.

Border officials routinely screen passengers against terrorist watch lists before international flights leave for the US, then check names against a different database while the flight is in the air.

It was during this second check that officials caught information that Abdulmutallab's father had provided to the US embassy in Nigeria a month earlier, warning that his son had drifted into extremism in the al-Qaeda hotbed of Yemen.

Mr Obama instantly ordered government reviews into the attack on a Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, on the existing terrorist watch list system and on airline security and screening.

Earlier this week, in a highly unusual public rebuke of the US spy community, Mr Obama said errors by intelligence agencies before the attack were "not acceptable".

Speculation has risen that Michael Leiter, director of the National Counter Terrorism Centre, would be forced out after it emerged that he stayed on a skiing holiday for several days after the attack.

Though Mr Obama has not singled out any part of the bureaucracy in public, it is understood that most of his frustration was directed at the NCTC. It was created after the September 11 attacks specifically to "join the dots" provided by different intelligence agencies.

Source : Air marshals rush to stop 'dozens' of suicide attacks - Telegraph