Washington, April 27: New videos produced by Al-Qaeda in Yemen show accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and others in firing practice, ABC television reported Monday.
The footage, aired on ABC’s US evening news, “also includes an apparent martyrdom statement in Arabic from the 23-year-old Nigerian justifying his actions,” the network said in a statement.
The young Nigerian allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane in an Al-Qaeda plot on December 25.
Abdulmutallab, clad in a white linen shirt and white skullcap as he speaks to the camera, says “your brotherhood of Muslims in the Arabian peninsula has the right to wage holy war because the enemy is in your lands with their armies, the Jews and the Christians and their agents.'”
He added that “God said those who punish you must be punished,” ABC reported.
The videos obtained by a Yemeni journalist working for ABC News appear to support Abdulmutallab’s statements to the FBI after his arrest that ‘others like me’ in Yemen were training to carry out attacks against US targets.
Earlier this month chief federal defender Miriam Siefer declined to comment when asked by reporters about a potential plea deal or the extent to which Abdulmutallab is cooperating with government officials.
Abdulmutallab pleaded not guilty in January to six terrorism-related charges.
He faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted.
The son of a prominent Nigerian banker, Abdulmutallab allegedly had explosives stitched into his underwear, which failed to detonate aboard the Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
It was passengers and crew not US intelligence that thwarted the attack, tackling and restraining Abdulmutallab before he was escorted off the plane.
The foiled bombing lead the United States to adopt stringent new screening and security measures at airports around the world.
Probes revealed that US analysts knew Abdulmutallab was an extremist and that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was plotting an attack, but did not connect the information.
—Agencies