Qaeda attack on US plane foiled

Washington, Dec. 26: A suspected Nigerian al Qaeda operative on Saturday made an attempt to blow up a US airliner in air, but was over-powered by alert passengers who staved off what could have been a devastating Christmas Day terror attack.

The passenger Umar Farouk Abdul Mudallab, an engineering student in London, tried to ignite an incendiary device aboard the Northwest Airlines flight 253, an Airbus 330, carrying 278 passengers from Amsterdam to Detroit, in what was described as an “attempted act of terrorism.”

Mudallab, 23, who sustained burn injuries in the failed bid, later told interrogators that explosive powder was taped to his leg and he used a syringe to inject chemicals into it to cause an explosion on the trans-Atlantic flight. However, the device mal-functioned and as fire erupted from his seat, passengers and aircraft crew dragged him to the front of the plane. —