Suspect in airliner attack known to have extremist links in UK but wasn’t considered violent

Airliner attack suspect had extremist links in UK

LONDON — A British government official says the man suspected of trying to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner was known to British intelligence as having links to U.K. extremists but was not considered sufficiently high risk to merit alerting American authorities.

A government official said Sunday that authorities realized shortly after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came to London to study in 2005 that he was in contact with known Islamic extremists whose communications were being monitored.

The official said there were no signs that Abdulmuttalab wanted to target the United States or was considering turning to violence. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

He said the 23-year-old appears to have been radicalized during the time he spent in Yemen.