Dutch say underwear bomber had explosives when he got there

CNN:

The suspect in the failed Christmas Day attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner apparently landed in the Netherlands carrying the explosives he planned to use, Dutch prosecutors said Tuesday.

Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab traveled through Ghana before he boarded a plane in Lagos, Nigeria, bound for Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, prosecutors said. From Schiphol, AbdulMutallab boarded the Northwest Airlines plane he is accused of attempting to blow up on its final approach to Detroit, Michigan.

The bomb, which authorities said was hidden in AbdulMutallab's underwear, failed to explode but did set off a fire, and he was overpowered by passengers and crew.

"The investigation so far has not given any hints about the suspect having had contact at Schiphol with possible acolytes, leaving the transfer area or displaying unusual behavior," Dutch prosecutors said in a statement.

"After having arrived at Schiphol he stayed in the transfer area for one hour and he reported at the gate around 7 a.m., where he underwent a 'profile conversation' and a security scan and afterwards stayed in the so-called clean area of the gate, awaiting the departure of his flight to Detroit," prosecutors said.

"So far, it seems he already had the explosives with him before he landed at Schiphol."

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I suspect he carried the explosives with him when he left Yemen and had them already when he departed from Ghana.

Someone at Andrew Sullivan's blog has asked why the bomber did not ignite it in the restroom instead of returning to his seat. I think his seat was strategically located so that the blast would damage the wings of the craft and cause a crash. Doing it in the head would not have had the same effect on the structure of the aircraft.