Travel Security Update

New York (AirGuide - Travel Security Update) 1/10/2010 On 5 January, United States President Barack Obama criticised failures in the intelligence community over a failed 25 December 2009 bomb plot, with swift changes to terrorist watchlists and airline passenger screening now to be implemented. Obama was referring to the alleged attempt by Nigerian citizen Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate a device in an aircraft preparing to land at Detroit airport, stating that the US intelligence community had failed to "connect the dots", which he described as "unacceptable". In response, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair declared that the community understood the president's message and that it had to improve efforts to prevent new types of attack in the future. Abdulmutallab was able to board an aircraft flying to the US despite being on a watchlist of 550,000 terrorist suspects. 1/7/2010