ABDULMUTALLAB.CROP1.JPG
In this undated image made available on Monday Dec. 28 2009 by teacher Mike Rimmer, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab poses while a pupil at the International School, Lome, Togo. On Dec 24 2009 Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up an airliner over Detroit, an attack claimed to have been coordinated by Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, an alliance of militants based in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
(The Associated Press)
The Transportation Security Agency's top official acknowledged this week that "Underwear Bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed in his 2009 attempt to detonate his explosives-laden skivvies aboard an airliner because ... wait for it ... his fuse was damp.
Abdulmuttallab, you'll remember, is the 27-year-old Nigerian engineer who smuggled a bomb aboard a flight carrying 289 people into Detroit. The potty jihadi, with suspected links to al-Qaida, is now serving life at the Supermax in Florence, Colorado, for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
TSA Administrator John S. Pistole told an interviewer on Thursday that the bomb failed to detonate because Abdulmutallab had been wearing the same undies for a couple of weeks, The Telegraph reported.
An interviewer at the Aspen Security Forum pressed Pistole on camera.
"It was damp, is that what it was? ... Like the fuse was bad?"
Pistole: "Let's say it was degraded, yeah."
Interviewer: "Well, thank goodness for bad hygiene."
Pistole: "That's right. Let's just say it's, uh, it's efficacy was degraded."
Here's your Spy Games Update of top national security news for the last week:
Before Snowden: The Whistleblowers Who Tried To Lift The Veil (NPR)
Fear and Loathing in Guantanamo Bay (The American Conservative)
Drone Bomb Plot Suspect Pleads Guilty on Immigration Charge (NBC)
Blacklisted: The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a Terrorist (The Intercept)
On the torture report, a confrontation looms (Yahoo News)
Obama orders Pentagon advisers to Ukraine to fend off Putin-backed rebels (The Washington Times)
Government agents 'directly involved' in most high-profile US terror plots (The Guardian)
Obama Sends Aide to Soothe German Allies (The New York Times)
-- Bryan Denson