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Terror attacks on New York city may have been planned on Christmas Day 2009, according to an Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the failed bombing aboard a plane bound for Detroit on that day. Somalian national Umar F Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate his explosives-laden underwear over Detroit aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on December 25, 2009. Abdulmutallab said he was acting on the Al Qaeda's instructions.
"The final target of the attack was not known, but extremist members had allegedly discussed restaurants and night clubs located in New York City," the FBI's assistant legal attache in London wrote three weeks before Christmas, according to the New York Post.
"The extremists allegedly discussed conducting the attack on December 25, to coincide with the Christmas holiday," it added. The report did not identify the individuals or group that was hatching the plan and it is not clear what happened to this gathered intelligence. There are, however, details as to what was being planned---the extremists wanted to hide components for an improvised explosive device in a shipment of khat, a plant often chewed like tobacco, from Nairobi heading to London.
From there, "Caucasian British Muslim ...would (allegedly) facilitate the transfer of the components to a flight bound for NYC," according to the report, noting that the group did not intend to detonate an explosive device on an aircraft.
In New York, the group was allegedly supposed to liaison with a Somali man only referred to as "Mohammed."
The veracity of the intelligence, at this point, is not clear, and an FBI spokesperson, Bill Carter, said he is "not aware of anything" to suggest the information contained in the report was eventually deemed credible, according to The Post."Most of it turns out to be just chatter, or there may have been something to it but it didn't happen," Carter said.
Carter also ruled out drawing a connection between the failed Detroit bombing attempted Abdulmutallab and this report, which came out three weeks before Christmas. "There might be a coincidence," Carter said of the Christmas Day timing noting that the December 4 report was "raw intelligence, unsubstantiated, uncorroborated information. But I'm not getting any impression that you can draw any conclusions from it."
Two law enforcement officials, according to NYP, noted that the FBI comes across 83,000 such reports each year with "hundreds a month" relating to New York City alone.But others in the counterterrorism field are not sure that the plots have nothing to do with each other.
One official speaking on the condition of anonymity suggested that extremists may have planned to attack NYC on Christmas Day but the plan didn't work and that's why a switch was made to target Detroit."People don't just drop it and leave, especially not these organisations," the official said of the Al Qaeda and its affiliates. "They go look for another way to do it."