Bomb plot 'ringleaders' were freed from Guantanamo

The attempted terror bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day could further delay President Obama's plans to close Guantanamo Bay, amid evidence that detainees from the prison who were released to Yemen are part of the al-Qaiida affiliate group claiming responsibility for the attack.

New details emerging yesterday leave little doubt that the attempt by Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 was probably the most dangerous terrorist threat to the US since the 9/11 attacks.

According to experts, the 80 grams of PETN explosive concealed in his underwear could have ripped a hole in the plane's side as it approached Detroit airport on 25 December.

The device was twice as powerful as the one used by the convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid on a transatlantic flight in December 2001.

The attempt, which almost succeeded, has also ignited a furious political debate over US anti-terrorist procedures, with Republicans assailing the Obama administration for the system's failure to identify Mr Abdulmutallab as a risk, despite a host of pointers.

Among these pointers, critics say, are the suspect's purchase of a single ticket with cash, the fact that he was making the long trip from Nigeria to the US without luggage, and the warning given to the US authorities by Mr Abdulmutallab's father that his son had developed alarming extremist leanings.

But it is the Yemen connection that is causing the most concern, and reinforcing doubts about the wisdom of closing Guantanamo.

Two of the purported leaders of the group claiming to have organised the bomb plot, calling itself Al-Qaiida in the Arabian Peninsula, are former inmates of the prison on the US naval base in Cuba.

They are Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, a field commander, and Said al-Shihri, said to be its deputy leader, who was transferred by the Bush administration to the Saudi authorities and released in 2007.

The 23-year-old Mr Abdulmutallab was living in Yemen between August and December this year, and has told investigators it was there he was supplied with the device he tried to detonate last Friday above Detroit.

Earlier this month, the White House announced it intends to transfer the bulk of Guantanamo detainees to an empty prison in northern Illinois, and resettle most of the rest in third countries. That remains the plan, officials say.

But of the 200-odd prisoners remaining at Guantanamo almost half are from Yemen - and only last week six Yemenis were sent back to their own country, even though it is a hotbed of al-Qaida activity.

According to top Yemeni officials, up to 300 al-Qa'ida militants could be based there, some of whom may be plotting new attacks on Western targets like the one on Northwest's Detroit-bound flight. "Of course there are a number of al-Qaida operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realise this danger," Yemen's Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, told the BBC.

Mr Abu Bakr al-Qirbi insisted that for all its weakness, and its wars with Shia rebels in the north and separatists in the south, Yemen's central government was committed to the conflict with al-Qaida. But, he said, it was not getting enough support from the West.

"We need more training," he said. "We have to expand our counter-terrorism units and this means providing them with the necessary training, military equipment, ways of transportation n we are very short of helicopters."

The US, Britain and the European Union could all help out, he added.

The most immediate concern for the Obama administration, however, is to regain control of the political aftermath of the incident, and rebut accusations that, with its focus on health care reform and other domestic priorities, it took its eye off the terrorist ball.

"I just don't believe we'll have more advance warning of an attack on America," one anti-terrorist specialist said yesterday, incredulous that Mr Abdulmutallab's US visa had not been revoked, and that he was not on a list that would have stopped him boarding a plane bound for the US.

Officials say that the father's warning on its own was not enough of a red flag. But President Obama has ordered a comprehensive review of the existing watch-list system, as well as an increase in the number of air marshals on incoming international flights.

"We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them responsible," Mr Obama vowed in a statement from Hawaii, where he is on holiday.

But that has not removed the issue from the ever-more partisan political arena here. Republicans see fresh opportunity to paint Mr Obama as weak on terrorism, and will carry the offensive into Congressional hearings on the bombing attempt, set for next month.

- THE INDEPENDENT