News

The Christmas Day plot to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in the skies over Detroit was hatched in an impoverished republic on the Arabian Peninsula, according to jihadist websites.

Suspected Nigerian plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab told FBI investigators that he was trained in Yemen, where the CIA is running a "covert front" against al-Qaeda, according to the New York Times.

US military planners are growing increasingly concerned that Yemen could rival Iraq and Afghanistan as a security challenge, if they do not act pre-emptively to dismantle terrorist networks.