From the NYTimes:
Officials Point to Suspect’s Claim of Qaeda Ties in Yemen
By ERIC SCHMITT and ERIC LIPTON
Published: December 26, 2009
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities on Saturday charged a 23-year-old Nigerian man with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, and officials said the suspect told them he had obtained explosive chemicals and a syringe that were sewn into his underwear from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al Qaeda.
The authorities have not independently corroborated the Yemen connection claimed by the man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was burned in his failed attempt to bring down the airliner and is in a hospital in Michigan. But a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said on Saturday that the suspect’s account was “plausible,” and that he saw “no reason to discount it.”
Let's leave Al Qaeda out of it for right now. Let's deal with what we do know. We do know that this man got on a plane, coming to Detroit, and sometime before its descent for landing, attempted to ignite some sort of explosive. This guy is the second coming of Richard Reid - the shoe bomber. But, something happened, and this young man's attempt didn't quite work out, but there were flames coming his way, and passengers on the plane grabbed him, stomped out the fire and subdued the suspect.
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