Catastrophic Terrorism

Terrorism - Catastrophic Terrorism - impact of WMD with terror organisations

The December 25 incident, when the Nigerian-origin student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow himself up over the Detroit Airport inside a passenger jet ready to land, has brought back in full fury the fear of murderous al-Qaeda in the American people’s mind. While the mainstream media is busy trashing the nation’s security system, a series of questions bother the mind of attentive observers. 

The line of inquiry goes like this: It was certainly a planned operation. He was surely guided by others who helped him to board the aircraft with explosives stitched into his underwear. As it happened, they did not detonate. But why did he wait till the plane was getting ready to land in Detroit instead of trying to blow himself up while the aircraft cabin was fully pressurized? No doubt, a fire and explosion in a fully pressurized cabin at a height of 30,000 feet-plus could cause a lot more mayhem than in a cabin already being de-pressurized.