CIA knew about Nigerian bomber five weeks before Detroit flight bombing bid

LONDON - Nigerian bomber’s father had cautioned the CIA that his son may be on a deadly al Qaeda mission weeks before he tried to blow up the Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, but the warning was not passed on in full by the intelligence agency due to bureaucratic logjam.

Abdulmutallab’s father Alhaji Uma Abdulmutallab, a prominent banker, reportedly had a face-to-face meeting with a CIA official in Nigeria and several contacts by telephone, The Telegraph reports.

A report was said to have been sent to CIA headquarters in Virginia, but much of it was not disseminated further to other agencies.

President Barack Obama issued a statement about the failed Christmas Day attack on Tuesday after learning about the report.

“Weeks ago, this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect’s name on a no-fly list,” Obama said.

Earlier, it was revealed that Abdulmutallab’s father spoke to “officials” at the US embassy in Nigeria but not that the CIA had prepared a report.

One bureaucratic source said: “We ended up in a situation where a single point of failure in the system put our security at risk.”

However, an intelligence source hit back, saying some details of the report had been passed on by the CIA, including the suspect’s name and passport number.

“I am not aware of a magic piece of intelligence that would have put him on the no-fly list,” he said. (ANI)