Wake-up call on air terror

The attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 from the Netherlands as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day was mercifully aborted by good luck -- and the brave intervention of Dutch passenger Jasper Schuringa and the flight's crew. But while the incident had a happy ending, it raised a number of troubling issues, starting with the stunning failure of the U.S. terrorist watch program to identify the suspect in this case as a threat despite ample evidence.

The suspect's father, a prominent and wealthy Nigerian banker, had warned U.S. officials about his son's radical religious views (see Cal Thomas' column on today's Commentary page).

The London Times reports that in May the suspect was refused re-entry to Britain, where he had been a university student and resident until November 2008. The New York Times reports that the alleged bomber's name was recently added to a list of people to be investigated for terrorist ties. That list has 550,000 names, whereas the list of people who must have additional screening at airports has only 13,000 names and the "no fly list" has only 4,000.

Another dangerous shortcoming exposed: The standard passenger security screening at Amsterdam's Schipol airport failed to detect the explosive device Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian bomber suspect, taped to his body. Evidence suggests he obtained the explosives in Yemen.

The incident brought renewed attention to a recent claim by al-Qaida in Yemen that it has developed a method of smuggling explosives past airport screeners. The claim was published after an incident in which an al-Qaida operative smuggled explosives with him into the well-guarded residence of Saudi Arabian Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, head of Saudi counterterrorism operations in a failed attempt to assassinate him.

Another red flag raised by Flight 253's narrow escape is the emergence of Yemen as a new center for al-Qaida operations. The attempt on Prince Nayef originated in Yemen. And the Christmas Day bomber suspect reportedly received religious guidance from a radical cleric in Yemen as did Maj. Nidal Hassan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people last month at Fort Hood, Texas.

Also disturbing: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's ludicrous insistence Sunday that the air travel security "system worked" in foiling the mass murder attempt on Flight 253. Though she finally conceded Monday that "clearly, something went awry" on the security front, her initial attempts to downplay the shortfalls of the system incident were anything but reassuring.

Then again, Secretary Napolitano has long seemed reluctant to acknowledge the continuing terror threat to the American homeland. Early this year, she even dropped the word "terrorism" from her description of her department's responsibilities.

That's a foolish -- and risky -- omission. The Flight 253 incident was at least the fifth attempt this year to carry out a terrorist attack on (or in this case, above) U.S. soil. A heightened awareness of this rising menace is in order. So are practical, timely reforms to counter it.

We can't expect the authorities to totally eliminate the terror threat, in the air or on the ground. But we should expect them to minimize that threat by improving security measures -- including crafting and enforcing more stringent policies on who can, and who can't, board airliners.