Nigerian bomber Abdulmutallab joined al-Qaeda in UK

London, Jan 8 (ANI): Failed Nigerian bomber Umar Abdulmutallab first joined dreaded terrorist outfit al-Qaeda while studying in Britain.

Hate preachers in Britain then fermented the 23-year-old Nigerian bombers hatred of the West. After being radicalised in London he later travelled to Yemen where he was trained as a suicide bomber.

Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate a bomb hidden in his underpants on a jet flying over the American city of Detroit on Christmas Day, The Sun reports.

Yemen's Deputy Prime Minister for defence and security, Rshad al-Alimi, said: "The information provided to us is that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab joined al-Qaeda in London."

During his time in London, he was also in contact with an individual being monitored by MI5. And as president of UCL's Islamic Society in 2007, Abdulmutallab organised a five-day series of lectures and seminars titled "War on Terror" where advertised speakers included former Guantánamo Bay detainees and human rights lawyers, the paper reports.

After leaving Britain in 2008, he went to an Australian university in Dubai. Then in May last year he applied for a student visa to study "life coaching" at a non-existent college in the UK, when it is thought he planned to team up again with Jihadist. But his application was rejected and his name put on a Home Office watch list.

Abdulmutallab then went to Yemen, against his family's wishes, to study at the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language, cutting off all communication with relatives.

Yemen security supremo Alimi also revealed that while in the country, Abdulmutallab met Anwar al-Awlaki, an English-speaking Islamic preacher linked to Fort Hood U.S. army base gunman Nidal Hasa, The Sun reportsn.

Awlaki is believed to have died in a strike on al-Qaeda militants in the Yemen last month. (ANI)