AbdulMutallab's passport surfaces

Sahara Reporters has obtained a copy of the international passport (#A-392-1640) of Farouk Umar AbdulMuttalab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who was arrested on Christmas day following a failed plot to bomb Northwest flight 253 as it was preparing to land in Detroit. The document was issued in Lagos on September 15, 2005 and is set to expire on September 14, 2010.

Kurt Haskell, a Michigan attorney who was on board the plane, has told various new outlets that he had seen a well-dressed man attempt to help Mr. Abdulmutallab board the flight in Amsterdam without a passport. But apparently, a passport had indeed been issued to Mr. Abdulmutallab. [This is consistent with a statement issued last week by Dutch counter-terrorism officials who confirmed that Abdulmutallab presented a Nigerian passport to authorities in Amsterdam before boarding the Detroit-bound plane.]

Meanwhile, the New York Times on Friday, quoted a Nigerian intelligence official who criticized both Nigerian and American Intelligence agencies for failing to pass on the warnings it had received from Mr. Abdulmutallab’s own father. However, the official aimed his harshest criticism at his American counterparts, “because these are agencies we look up to.”

“If we had been informed, we would have put him on a watch list,” he said. “There’s no way he would have boarded a plane in Nigeria.”

The official said that the Americans, in particular, should have been more careful “because they are the major targets.”

“If they can’t work on simple intelligence from what I would describe as a reliable person,” he said, [then] "nobody’s safe if they don’t take it seriously.”