Obama to meet security agency heads on plane bombing

WASHINGTON, JAN 1 (Xinhua/GNA) -- U.S. President Barack Obama is to meet with

relevant agency heads Tuesday on the failed plane bombing plot, the White House said

Thursday.
The White House announced in a statement that the president, who is vacationing with his

family in Hawaii, will meet personally with relevant agency heads Tuesday in Washington to

"discuss our ongoing reviews as well as security enhancements and intelligence- sharing

improvements in our homeland security and counter- terrorism operations."

Obama is to receive assessments form several agencies Thursday night. He is expected

to review the assessments overnight and through the course of the new-year weekend.

The president admitted that a mix of human and systemic failures have contributed to the

occurrence of the incident on Christmas Day, and he ordered reviews into the incident.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, attempted to set off an explosive

device attached to his body on a Delta/ Northwest flight from Amsterdam, the Netherlands,

to Detroit, Michigan, on Dec. 25.
Abdulmutallab's father warned the U.S. embassy in Nigeria last month of his son's

radicalization. However, the U.S. intelligence agencies only added Abdulmutallab's name to a

terrorist watch list that includes names of persons possibly connected to terrorist groups but

not automatically subjected to more security screening at airports.

Even without the father's warning, "there were bits of information available within the

intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together," Obama said.

GNA