Obama briefed on plane bomb probe

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US President Barack Obama has received reports on the security lapses that allegedly allowed a Nigerian to smuggle a bomb onto a transatlantic airliner. He ordered the reviews after denouncing "systemic" failures in the handling of the alleged bombing attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day. They are expected to say agencies failed to share key information. The US was reportedly aware weeks ago that "a Nigerian" in Yemen was preparing an attack. Mr Obama said he would study the preliminary reports on Friday and over the weekend before meeting security chiefs on Tuesday. 'Different path' Nigerian officials say Mr Abdulmutallab had begun his journey in Ghana and spent less than half an hour in Nigeria before boarding a flight to Amsterdam. There he changed planes for a US-bound flight with 289 people aboard. He was tackled by passengers and crew as he allegedly tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear using a liquid-filled syringe, shortly before Northwest Airlines Flight 253 landed in Detroit. He has been charged with attempting to destroy an aircraft and is being held at a federal prison in Michigan. The US news website Politico quoted officials involved in the security reviews as saying information that could have prevented the failed attack had been "vague but available" to intelligence agencies. The Washington Post reported that agencies under scrutiny include the CIA, the National Security Agency, the State Department, and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) - which was established after the September 2001 attacks on the US to collate and connect intelligence sharing efforts. "The right information did not get to the right people - there's no question about that," a senior intelligence official told the newspaper. "If all known information had been provided, we would have been down a different path."

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.