Nigerian suspect used 'new, sophisticated explosive device' in US airline bombing plot

Washington, Dec. 27 (ANI): US investigators probing the trans Atlantic flight-bombing bid have said that a mixture of powder and liquid used by the Nigerian suspect to bring the Detroit-bound Airbus 330 down is a "new type of explosive device," which perhaps can evade the airport security.

On Friday, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23, a Nigerian origin London student attempted to detonate a bomb strapped to his leg - and activated with a syringe of chemicals. But hero passenger Jasper Schuringa, a Dutch film director, wrested the bomb away from the terrorist, saving the plane and 277 fellow passengers from disaster.

According to News of the World, Mutallab was carrying 80 grams of Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate, a highly explosive compound generally stored as a mixture in water, and had tried to detonate it using chemicals in a syringe.

He reportedly confessed to the FBI that al Qaeda had supplied explosive powder to him in Yemen as part of a "mission to bring down a jet on US soil".

US officials said the bomb was a "fairly sophisticated device" which, alarmingly, they have never encountered before.

While Dutch authorities confirmed that Abdul Mutallab had passed through security checks at Schiphol airport in transit, the country's counter-terrorism agency NCTb insisted that they could not rule out the possibility of dangerous items getting on board "especially objects difficult to detect with current security technology such as metal detectors". (ANI)