By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody.

Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary.

CBS News has learned that as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed “The Nigerian,” suspected of meeting with “terrorist elements” in Yemen.

Sources tell CBS News “The Nigerian” has now turned out to be Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. But that connection was not made when Abudulmutallab’s father went to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria three months later, on November 19, 2009. It was then he expressed deep concerns to a CIA officer about his son’s ties to extremists in Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda activity.

“We learned of him in November, when his father came to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and sought help in finding him. We did not have his name before then,” said Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman. “Also in November, we worked with the embassy to ensure he was in the government’s terrorist database – including mention of his possible extremist connections in Yemen. We also forwarded key biographical information about him to the National Counterterrorism Center.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence. Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group’s links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen. The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.

“A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services,” Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province. “Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings,” he added.

The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.

Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell – led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani – whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.

Reuters reports Dutch military police are investigating claims that an accomplice may have helped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam on Christmas day without a passport.

Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., took to the comments section of this Web site early Saturday to share his story: That he and his wife, Lori, saw a well-dressed man help Abdulmutallab board the flight without a passport under the guise he was a Sudanese refugee. The military police have already said Abdulmutallab did not go through passport control at Schiphol when he arrived from Lagos.

A passenger has come forward with disturbing new details about the plot to bring down a jet, including the astonishing claim that the accused terrorist was able to board the plane without a passport.

Kurt Haskell showed INSIDE EDITION his boarding pass for Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. The lawyer, who lives outside Detroit, was returning home from an African safari when he says he saw the terror suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabm, and another man, who he thought was Indian, approach the ticket agent.

“Only the Indian man spoke,” says Haskell, “And what he said was, ‘This man needs to board the plane but he doesn’t have a passport.’ ”

“His clothes were like jeans and a t-shirt or something, he looked kind of thin, like a 16-year-old teenager, and the other man, looked like he was 50 years old, looked like he was a wealthy, Indian man. I just couldn’t figure out why they were together,” Haskell tells INSIDE EDITION.

CBS News has learned the State Department system designed to keep track of active U.S. visas twice failed to reveal Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been issued an active visa allowing him multiple entries into the United States.

According to a law enforcement source, the first failure came on Nov. 19, 2009, the very same day Abdulmutallab father’s, Dr. Umaru Mutallab, a prominent banking official in Nigeria, expressed deep concern to officials at the U.S. Embassy in Abjua, Nigeria, that his 23-year-old son had fallen under the influence of “religious extremists” in Yemen.

The second failure to flag an active visa belonging to Abdulmuttalab occurred the very next day in Washington, after Mutallab’s concerns were forwarded to officials there. It was only after the Christmas Day terror attack in Detroit that U.S. officials learned that Abdulmuttalab had been issued a visa by the U.S. Embassy in London valid from June 16, 2008, through June 12, 2010. ..

• My son is a danger to himself and others, please keep him safe
• Do not allow my son to travel to the United States under any imaginable circumstances as he is likely to be involved in acts of terrorism
• Please assure me that you will act immediately and contact me as to what measures you have taken

The Mutallab case also resembles that of another

attempted plane bombing, that of the hapless “shoe bomber” Richard

Reid.

It has also been revealed that Mutallab is the son of Alhaji Umaru

Mutallab, the former chairman of First Bank of Nigeria. According to

This Day of Lagos, the elder Mutallab claims he reported the

extremist views of his son to Nigerian security agencies, as well as

to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, yet no attempt was made to prevent the

radically-inclined Nigerian student to board the plane in Schiphol.

The attempted plane bomber was schooled at the British International

School in Lome, Togo and attended college in London and moved to

Egypt and Dubai. The elder Mutallab is a frequent visitor to the

United States and he is married to a Yemeni woman. …

For a number of years, passengers at Schiphol flying to the United

States have been subjected to intense grilling by security personnel

linked to an Israeli firm.

US bound passengers at Schiphol are asked a number of personal questions, including where

they have stayed either in the Netherlands or in their country of

origin. Hotel receipts are routinely requested by security personnel

and the addresses of private temporary residences are recorded.

Mutallab boarded a KLM flight in Lagos for Schiphol where he

transited for his onward flight to Detroit on Northwest/Delta.

Six months prior to Reid’s near shoe bombing of American Airlines

flight 63 from Paris to Miami in December 2001, while memories of

9/11 were still fresh in everyone’s mind, Reid attempted to board an

El Al flight from Schiphol to Tel Aviv.

Reid was taken aside by El Al

security and identified as a terrorist suspect. Reid paid for a

one-way ticket with cash and would not reveal what he planned to do

in Israel.

However, rather than turning Reid into Dutch security for

further action, he was allowed to board the El Al flight by Israel’s

Shin Bet security so his movements during his five days in Israel

could be monitored.

Six months later, Reid attempted to ignite his

shoe on the flight from Paris to Miami. Israel had not informed

British, American, or any other security agency of the concerns about

Reid. Reid’s aunt, Claudette Lewis who raised Reid in south London,

was quoted as saying she believed her nephew had been “brainwashed.”

Reid later said El Al failed to detect that he had explosives in his

shoes on the flight to Tel Aviv, an amazing revelation considering

the Israeli airline’s tight security.

..

The links between El Al security and Mossad are extremely close with

abundant cross-pollination of senior personnel back and forth.

The security company that allowed Reid to board American Airlines 63

at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was ICTS (International

Consultants on Targeted Security) International. ICTS’s senior

management are all ex-Israeli security officials, many of whom worked

for El Al security.

It was ICTS that largely developed the passenger “profiling”

procedures used at Schiphol and other airports around the world

through its subsidiary, ICTS Holland Products BV.

• Our terrorist traveled to Yemen to meet with terrorist there
• The terrorists in Yemen had been in Guantanamo but had been ordered released by the Bush Administration though they were, perhaps the most dangerous detainees held
• The government of Yemen tells us that Islamic terrorists there have been arrested who have proven ties to Israeli intelligence
• Our terrorists father, though we are told is a retired “Nigerian banker” actually ran their defense industry in close cooperation with Israeli Intelligence (Mossad)
• Our terrorist’s visa to the US was never with withdrawn, though he was on a “terrorist watchlist”
• Our terrorist, though flying from Nigeria, entered the Netherlands without passing thru customs, something impossible to do without assistance from an intelligence agency
• Our terrorist, while at the Amsterdam airport, was being assisted by a man appearing to be Indian, who claimed our Nigerian terrorist was a Sudanese refugee with no passport (no passport was used entering the EU, something technically impossible)
• However, Dutch authorities, the same ones who confirmed he entered the country with no passport also confirmed he had a valid US visa, though on a terrorist watch list that is shared with Dutch authorities.
• Airport security in Amsterdam is contracted to an Israeli controlled company with, not only the most sophisticated technologies, but, in fact, the company that had developed the concept of security profiling.
• The parallels between this case and the Richard Reid “shoe bomber” case are much more than admitted.

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Veterans Today Senior Editor Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on policial and social issues.