2005 – Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab starts attending University College in London (UCL) on an engineering with business finance degree program.

2006-2007 Mutallab was president of UCL’s Islamic society.
Meanwhile he visited the USA on a tourist visa in this period. US State Department would not give details on when and where in the US this trip occur.

Summer of 2008 – he successfully graduates from UCLA

May, 2008 – UK refuses to prolong his student visa after he applied to study at another college which authorities did not consider credible. UK places Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on its security watch list. This meant he was not allowed to enter into the UK, although he could pass through the country in transit.

The UK home secretary Mr Johnson told BBC Radio 4 that the US authorities should theoretically have been informed that Mr Abdulmutallab was on a UK watch-list, and he doubted there had been a “hiccup” in procedures.

June 12, 2008 – Umar applies for US visa and undergoes interview in the US Embassy in London

June 16, 2008 – he is granted two year multiple-entry visa from the US Embassy in London

US Department of State spokesman Ian Kelly explains:

Well, we understand there’ll be a lot of attention on this particular visa issuance. At the time that his visa was issued, there was nothing in his application nor in any database at the time that would indicate that should he not receive a visa. He was a student at a very reputable school. He had plenty of financial resources, so he was not an intending immigrant. There was no derogatory information about him last year – last June – that would indicate that he shouldn’t get a visa, so we issued the visa.

Mr. Kelly declined to comment during the briefing on procedures between the US consulate and UK visa authorities in London.

!!!!!Failure alert!!!!!

It is not clear if US was notified that Mutallab was on UK watch list and had his visa revoked few weeks before he applied for new US visa (it was not his first).

August 2008 – Houston, Texas, USA – Mutallab attended a two-week program hosted by a Web-based Islamic education center AlMaghrib Institute. Advertisement for the summit describes it as selecting top students for specialized study of the sciences of Islam, with teachings ranging from the compilation of the Quran to the history of the rise and fall of Muslim Spain. This is not the first time Mutallab had been in the USA.

2008- beginning of 2009 – Mutallab leaves US for Egypt and then Dubai. Unclear what his activities there were.

August, 2009 – Yemeni foreign ministry Migration and Passport Authority had confirmed that Mutallab arrived in Yemen at the beginning of August to study at the Sanaa Institute for the Arabic Language (SIAL).

At the time CIA became aware that “Nigerian” is being prepared for a bombing attack, but have no name on the suspect. The raw data from CIA was available to the National Counterterrorism Center.

November 19, 2009 – Mutallab’s father who is a prominent Nigerian banker went to the US Embassy in Abuja, talked to executive officer there, but not to the ambassador. The father claims that he received a text message from his son. Mutallab told his parents to renounce him as their son. He told them he has found a new life in Yemen and would have no further contact with his Nigerian family. He asked them to forgive him of any wrongdoing and that he had ceased to be their child. He also said he was no longer coming home. He then admonished his parents never to contact him as he would never reach them again. It was the last contact his family had with him. The father asked US to help him get his son back from Yemen.

November 20, 2009 – US Embassy in Nigeria sends VIPER cable to the Department of State in Washington DC. The information from the father is then sent to National Counterterrorism Center. Mutallab is placed on Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) list, but not on the “no fly” list.

!!!!! Failure Alert!!!!!
NCTC does not revoke Mutalab’s visa from June 2008, his name was not connected with the CIA “Nigerian” report and he is not placed on the “no fly list”

Early December 2009 – Mutallab leaves Yemen for Ethiopia and Ghana – no info on the few weeks he spent in Ethiopia.

December 24 – he spends one day in Lagos Nigeria on his way to Amsterdam.

December 25 – a passenger from the same flight believes he witnessed Mutallab trying to board the plane without passport claiming to be a refuge from Sudan.

Authorities at the Amsterdam airport claim Mutallab had a valid Nigerian passport and a valid US visa.

!!!!! Failure alert!!!!!
It is not clear why Mutalab was not a subject to secondary security inspection at the airport. All people on TIDE list are supposed to go through extra security screening which was not the case in Amsterdam.

Mutallab boards the plane with a bomb in his underwear despite being on UK watch list and US TIDE list.
Looks like there was a lot of watching, but there was no connections made in the brain and no actions taken at the four airports Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab went through while on UK and US watch lists. The US Homeland Security System behaved like something that should be pronounced clinically dead.