J.J. Green, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – At noon on Oct. 25, the door to the
Transportation Security Operations Center swung open.
A loudspeaker blasted.
“Attention TSOC floor, secure your classified
documents, an uncleared individual is on the floor.”
Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole
was about to give WTOP an exclusive tour of the facility.
Afterward, he made a seemingly benign, intelligence-based
prediction that rang true with shocking accuracy just days
later.
“We believe the bomb maker for Abdulmutallab the
underwear bomber is still out there,” he said. “There
could be similar devices that could show up at any time.”
Seventy-two hours later, package bombs — believed to be
built by the bomb maker Pistole referred to — were
discovered on cargo planes in Dubai and the U.K.
Officials began a frantic hunt to find out where the bombs
came from — and if there were more out there.
“At 10:35 p.m. last night, Assistant to the President for
Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan
alerted the president of the credible terrorist threat,”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said during an Oct. 29
briefing.
At the same news conference, Brennan said both packages
that had been identified to date originated in Yemen.
“We know that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has been
trying to carry out attacks against U.S. and Western
interests, as well as against Yemenis,” he said. “So as we
continue with this investigation, we are trying to
understand who is behind it, the responsibility, and make
sure that we understand the scope of the threat that we
might face.”
One security official said “controlled panic” washed over
the intelligence community after the packages were
discovered.
“We’re in a race against time to find and shut down the
plot,” the official said. “U.S. and British officials
suspect that the explosive devices were meant to detonate
while on the planes, rather than at the Chicago
destinations. And at least one of the packages flew on
passenger flights before it was discovered.”
On Nov. 5, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed
responsibility for the mail bomb plot and the September
crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai. Authorities have
found no evidence of a bomb among the wreckage of the
Boeing 747-400, but they still don’t know what caused the
plane to crash.
Al-Qaida operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to
detonate a bomb concealed in his underwear on Christmas
Day 2009 while aboard a Northwest Airlines plane, but it
malfunctioned. Neither of the devices found on the cargo
planes Oct. 28 worked, either.
“The big thing that sticks in my mind that I don’t have an
explanation for is, ‘Why didn’t these devices detonate,
what went wrong?'” said Fred Burton, who investigated the
Pan Am Flight 103 bombing for the State Department.
Pistole said during the Oct. 25 interview officials were
concerned.
“I see every day that goes by as a day closer to the next
attempted attack, so our vigilance is critical to
preventing that next attack from happening,” he said.
A U.S intelligence official said there is great concern
that al-Qaida sympathizers inside the U.S. might be
inspired by the mail bomb plot.
An FBI spokesman, reached late on Friday, refused to
comment on the situation, saying only, “We are aware and
investigating.”
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(Copyright 2010 by WTOP. All right reserved.)
