Dutch government says all passengers to US will have to go through full-body scanners once they have been installed at Schiphol airport

This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Barack Obama today described US intelligence failings as "totally unacceptable" after it emerged that agencies knew leaders of a branch of al-Qaida in Yemen had talked about "a Nigerian" being prepared for a terrorist attack.

The US president interrupted a holiday in Hawaii to speak bluntly about the lapses that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board a Northwest Airlines flight to the US in Amsterdam.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Photograph: US marshals/EPA

The Dutch government today announced that all passengers to the US would have to go through full-body scanners once they have been installed at Schiphol airport in three weeks.

The Dutch interior minister, Guusje Ter Horst, said the authorities had wanted to introduce the scanners for passengers travelling to the US before the attempted bombing.

However, the devices were not installed because US authorities wanted them to be used on flights to all destinations.

Ter Horst said the attempted plane bombing had been prepared professionally but executed amateurishly.

"If the detonation had been done in a correct manner, then part of the plane would have exploded and a hole in the plane would have caused a great tragedy," she said.

A preliminary Dutch investigation said all security checks were correctly carried out in Amsterdam before the flight left, and US authorities cleared the passenger list that included Abdulmutallab.

Holst said the Dutch authorities did not know that Abdulmutallab – who was travelling on a Nigerian passport – was on a US security list.

Ter Horst said Abdulmutallab apparently assembled the explosive device, including 80 grams of the military explosive PETN, in the aircraft toilet and had planned to detonate it using a syringe of chemicals.

"It is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster," Ter Horst said.

Meanwhile, officials in Somalia said a Somali tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month with powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion.

Abdulahi Hassan Barise, a police spokesman, said the suspect was arrested before the 13 November Daallo Airlines flight left.

It was scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai.

Two international officials in Nairobi said the incident was similar to the attempted Detroit attack.

US officials said they were aware of the incident and were investigating any possible links with the Detroit incident.

A senior official told the New York Times Obama had been briefed that the US had information that would have amounted to a clear warning if shared among agencies.

This included details on where Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his plans were.

"When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable," the US president said.

The New York Times reported that although US agencies did not have the name of the 23-year-old Nigerian, they could have found it by looking at information about him that was already available.

Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to blow up the flight to Detroit on Christmas Day.

"Had this critical information been shared, it could have been compiled with other intelligence and a fuller, clearer picture of the suspect would have emerged," Obama said.

"The warning signs would have triggered red flags and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America."

Senior US officials told the Associated Press that the intelligence authorities were looking at conversations between Abdulmutallab and at least one al-Qaida member.

The unnamed officials said the conversations were vague or coded, but US intelligence believed that, in hindsight, they may have been referring to the attempted attack in Detroit.

Obama's homeland security and counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, is due to present the president with an early report based on recommendations and summaries from across the government.

Yemen, meanwhile, has warned of hundreds more militants on its soil planning to attack the west, and appealed for help to stop them.

Yemen's foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, told the BBC that up to 300 extremists, backed by al-Qaida, were waiting to follow the example of Abdulmutallab.

"Of course there are a number of al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, and some of their leaders," he said.

"We realise this danger. They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit ... I can't give you exact figures. There are maybe hundreds of them – 200, 300."

The minister said Britain, the US and other western nations could do "a lot" to improve Yemen's response to militants on its own soil and it was the "responsibility" of developed countries with strong intelligence capabilities to warn it about the movements of terror suspects.

"We have to expand our counter-terrorism units and this means providing them with the necessary training, military equipment, ways of transportation – we are very short of helicopters," he said, claiming the US, UK and EU could do more.

"There is support, but I must say it is inadequate."

Yemen's government confirmed that Abdulmutallab had visited the country twice in recent years – for several months in 2005 and again from August until shortly before his failed attempt to bring down the airliner.

He has told FBI interrogators that he was trained in Yemen by al-Qaida.

Abdulmutallab described Yemen as "great" in internet postings made after he visited the country for the first time to learn Arabic while he was a boarder at an elite international school in west Africa.