security? a special "larry king live" begins right now. i'm drew griffin. see you back here with a full report in an hour. let's go to larry king. larry, i don't know where you are? los angeles, i assume. >> larry: tonight, christmas flight terror, a 23-year-old nigerian man is charged with trying to destroy an american airliner. who is he? how could he get on a plane with a high explosive? did he have help from any organized group? were his father's warnings about his radicalized behavior weeks ago ignored by authorities witnesses will tell us what they saw onboard and passengers prevented what might have been a disaster. >> when we were about to land -- >> we smelled a bunch of smoke -- >> we saw fumes and there was a flame fire coming out.

>> larry: all next on a very special edition of "larry king live." drew griffin was right. we are in los angeles. good evening. there are major developments regarding the attempted terror attack on a commercial airline yesterday and major questions tonight surrounding the near disaster. here to walk us through this incredible turn of events is martin savage who is at the detroit metropolitan airport and bundled up on a cold night in michigan. martin, i know when a story breaks like this, so many things can happen, you are wrong sometimes and right sometimes. let's go back to the beginning. what do we know know? what happened? >> reporter: here is what i think. many people don't realize how dramatically their lives in the air as the flying public are going to change as a result of what happened in this skies over

detroit 33 hours ago. let me walk you back. it is shortly before noon christmas day. you are onboard northwest airline 253, on final approach coming in after flying nine hours from amsterdam into detroit. almost down on the ground when passengers report hearing popping noises, they see flashes of lights. they think a passenger set off fireworks. much more sinister. a passenger tried to blow that airliner out of the sky. it is reportedly a 23-year-old nigerian national. fortunately for the passengers and crew the device didn't go off as effectively as the man hoped. instead of blowing the plane up, it starts a fire and causes chaos. because of the quick reaction of the passengers and crew, the flames are put out, the passenger is subdued, the plane lands safely. all right. fast forward, today, a bizarre court appearance where you have

the 23-year-old suspect wheeled not into a courtroom but into a conference room at the hospital where he is recovering from third-degree burns he sustained trying to carry out the terrorist attack. federal authorities are questioning him saying how do you feel. he says i feel a lot better than i did yesterday. he is speaking almost perfect english. he is very nonpluszed, very casual. the charges are read against him, attempting to blow up an airliner. he could get 20 years. those are the initial charges. more are likely to come. then he is asked do you have an attorney. he says, no i don't. they say we'll provide one for you. the simple proceedings end there. the changes for the flying public only begin. across the country already new security measures are in effect. it will slow your progress as you go through the terminal. for international passengers flying to the united states major changes, major scrutiny of

their baggage. when they are on the plane they are not allowed to leave their seats in the last hour. can't restreef any bags, nothing on their lap, not a pillow, not a blanket, their lives, millions of lives for passengers changed because of what happened here in the skies over detroit about 33 hours ago. larry. >> larry: there has been no christmas like this one. are we safe to assume, jean, our cnn homeland security correspondent, safe to assume this was a suicide mission and if so, why is he waiting until it lands? >> those are some questions we are still looking at. they are calling this an attempted terrorist event. apparently he was going to commit suicide and allegedly take the rest of the plane down with him. as to why he was doing it over land as opposed to somewhere else we haven't heard anything definitive yet. there is a lot of speculation. it could have been he was

looking to maximize damage on the ground. also perhaps it would be easy to claim responsibility if the wreckage was found as opposed to being lost in the ocean, let's say. those are theories floating around. investigators are being very tightlipped at this point in time, larry. >> larry: how do we know, jean, that it wasn't just this sick individual? >> we don't know know that for sure. that is, of course, what they are checking out. they are looking at computers, cell phones, any communications this guy might have had, trying to figure out, put the pieces together. i talked to a former government official familiar with aviation security, this is something this guy did not do on his own. he had a petn, a very volatile and very dangerous explosive. he knew where to sit to maximize the damage. he was over the fuel tanks. he was near the skin of the plane where the damage would

have been the greatest. he had a cover story. he went to the bathroom for about 20 minutes according to the affidavit and came back to his seat saying he had a stomach ache. covered himself with a blanket. he had that cover story, he news to use the blanket, he spent time in the bathroom doing we are not quite sure if he was mixing something up in there or praying or what he might have been doing, all of those things this individual point to the fact he may not have been acting on his own. somewhere, somehow he got some instruction. of course they are trying to figure that out and where he got that petn. >> larry: nic robertson is outside the suspect's last known address. n nic, what are the authorities looking for in this building? >> reporter: larry, they were looking for anything that might link the suspect to an ongoing

terror plot involving other people. what's happened overnight is the police have suspended the operation. they have put this tape up around the area. police officers are securing the building. they say they will continue the search in the morning. however, the fact they suspended it does seem to indicate they don't think they are finding information that leads them to believe there is an ongoing terror plot. in that circumstance one could imagine a lot more police sifting through the evidence working through the night, larry. >> larry: drew griffin, who has been anchoring this all afternoon and will continue after this show goes off, our cnn investigative correspondent, what hits you the most about this, drew? is this something to cause panic? >> well, i don't think you can panic, but i don't think anybody is going to feel good about what happened. even though this was averted, larry, it was averted because of a bunch of passengers and crew jumped up and took matters in their own hands.

what stands out the most to me is the screening procedures this guy went through in amsterdam are almost identical of the screening procedures we go through in los angeles, chicago or here in atlanta. meaning that this kind of device, whatever it was, could easily get through security at any major airport. and that has got to be very, very troubling, specifically for tsa officials today. >> larry: do we know, drew, why he was in amsterdam? >> we know he was flying from nigeria to amsterdam on a connecting flight. he had about a three-hour layover there. one of the passengers said they did notice this man pacing. didn't say pacing oddly, but pacing during that layover in amsterdam but that wasn't enough to alert authorities to do any further screening. >> larry: we'll pick up with this panel in a few moments.

what is president obama's reaction to this yesterday and today? ed henry will tell us right after the break.

>> larry: right back with the panel. president obama is in vacation in hawaii. what briefing has he being getting? ed henry joins us. what is he saying and getting? >> reporter: larry, behind the scenes this president is getting

a lot of information. it started early this morning, 6:20 hawaii time, five hours back from the east coast. the president got a secured briefing from his top aides, giving him the latest of the investigation, a lot of the inside information. authorities beef up security around the country. he has been listening to these briefings. one thing he has not done is come out publicly and said anything. some criticism like congressman peter king saying the president should be out there. i put that to a senior administration official who said, look, this is not this president's style. like president bush, when there was a terrorist event president bush would be out there front and center. he was out golfing today, he has a different style. he can move forward with his vacation, get the briefings in private, let others handle the

public side of the investigation. his homeland security secretary is going on the sunday talk shows but he believes he should stay behind the scenes. >> larry: no plan for him to cut that vacation short? >> reporter: no. he is planning to stay here a couple of days past new year's. >> larry: jean meserve, you wanted to add something? >> yes. there are screening technology that should have picked up 'petn if he had gone through those machines. there is an explosive swab test. if you are pulled aside for secondary screening. they take a piece of fabric and run it over your carry on bags. that could have caught it. if there had been a body scan that could have shown something concealed on his body. dogs might have picked this up. there used to be puffer machines

in the airport that put blasts of air over you that picked up traces of explosives. those have been phased out. he only went through an x-ray machine which would only pick up metal not petn. he was not on the no-fly list. he must not have been on the selectee list. if he had been on that he would have gotten the explosive swab screening. >> larry: martin, the suspect's father recently retired chairman of one of nigeria's premier banks contacted security agencies and the american embassy several months ago expressing concern about his son. that totalo of the father comes from the website of the first bank of nigeria, the bank he retired from. what do we know about his

reporting and involvement, martin? >> reporter: he saw his son was becoming more and more motivated by radical ideas and grew greatly concerned so much so he contacted american authorities saying i'm worried about my son and what he may do next. it appears authorities heard that. american officials dually noted it. he was put on an observation list. that is not strong enough evidence to say he is on a no-fly list. they were alerted but no action was taken. >> larry: nic, is this a big story in england? >> reporter: it is, larry, because it does appear this is where the young man was radicalized. it has happened at universities here in london before to muslim students. there are radicalizers that radicalize some of the students. when he studied here between 2005 and 2008, mechanical

engineering, when he finished that course he asked to go to university in saudi arabia or cairo, egypt. they were worried because he was making contact with suspicious people. at that stage they were already getting worried about his radicalization. there is another point that is interesting and that is the very same summer when his parents were getting worried, that very same summer the u.s. embassy here in london got a multiple entry visa for return visits to go in and out of the united states. there are inconsistencies here, too. >> larry: one thing more quickly with drew griffin who will follow this program live around the clock as we do it at cnn. drew, do you know what he has been officially charged with? >> yeah. larry, i have the charging papers. it is two counts here. i will try to get them exactly

right for you. he was charged, gee wiz, larry. you would have to ask me that one question. let's bring in jean. she has been following that. >> larry: i got to get a break. >> bringing a destructive device on an airplane. the first one attempting to destroy a northwest airlines plane. >> larry: we thank the panel. we are going to hear from the man who helped subdue the suspect. cnn's exclusive interview in 60 seconds. if you think all batteries are the same... consider this: these duracell batteries were given... to the mattel children's hospital, u.c.l.a. because when it comes to kids and healing... you're not just powering a toy. you're powering a smile. duracell. trusted everywhere.

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subdue the smt. here is some of what he said. >> i reacted on a bang. there was smoke piling up in the cabin. people were screaming, fire, fire! the first thing we all did was to check where the fire was. then i saw the suspect and he was on the seat. i was on the right side of the plane and the suspect was on the left so there were quite some seats in between. so when i saw that the suspect, he was getting on fire and i freaked, of course, and without any hesitation i just jumped over all the seats and jumped to the suspect and i was thinking he is trying to blow up the plane. so i was trying to search his body for any explosives and then i took some kind of object that was melting and smoking out of him. i tried to put out the fire and

then when i did that i was also restraining the suspect. and then the fire started beneath his seat. so with my hands and everything, you see i have a little burn, i put out the fire and then other passengers helped me as well and, of course, i was screaming for water, water, because a fire in the plane is not that good, of course. so but then the fire was actually getting a little worse because what i did didn't extinguish the fire. i grabbed the suspect out of the seat because if he was wearing any more explosives it could be dangerous because he was on fire. when i grabbed him from the seats the crew came with fire extinguishers and they got clear of all the flames. just to be sure i grabbed it with another attendant and took him to first class and there we stripped him and contained him

with handcuffs and made sure he had no more weapons, no more bombs on him. >> larry: are you afraid to fly now or not? go to our blog and tell us. more after this. aisle. choose any car? you cannot be serious! okay. seriously, you choose. go national. go like a pro.

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[ male announcer ] sign then drive is back. hurry in and get legendary volkswagen value for practically just your signature. ♪ >> larry: our next panel in washington, peter bergen, cnn national security analyst, his books are "holy war, inc" and the osama bin laden i know. france ses town send, chief homeland security adviser for president george w. bush. eric margalese, author of "american raj." here in los angeles harry

humphreys, founder and president of the global studies group and former navy seal. peter bergen, what is the suspect's al qaeda connection? >> he received the device in yemen. the second most important place in the world for al qaeda. substantial al qaeda presence there. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is the name of the group. we have seen a connection to yemen in the ft. hood shooting with the cleric who went on al jazeera recently to explain that major hasan the lead suspect in the ft. hood shooting had asked him if it was okay to kill fellow soldiers. so we have seen yemen is sort of a hot bed of militancy. >> larry: frances, he is claiming ties to al qaeda and talking a lot. what do you make of that? >> that he is talking about is

good. what investigators can corroborate. the terrorist ties back to yemen are extensive and long between al qaeda's affiliation with operatives there. our consulate in saudi arabia was attacked and recently the head of the internal security service in saudi arabia, there was an assassination attempt against him emanating out of yemen. our embassy there has been attacked more than twice and our security personnel and diplomats there are often targeted by al qaeda. we have a long history of counterterrorism problems emanating out of yemen and this is only the most recent. >> larry: eric, the suspect is upper middle class, prominent nigerian banker family. how typical is that? >> unfortunately, it is becoming more and more typical. i have seen cases from morocco

to indonesia of young, medium or well educated young muslims linked by one thing, anger or fury over the u.s. occupation of afghanistan and incited by messages from radical islamist preachers or al qaeda's messages. they are not really members of the al qaeda organization even though some may claim to be. but they are inspired by its philosophy and it is very dangerous. it is spreading rapidly. we had cases in toronto, in england, in spain, france. i think we can expect more. >> larry: all right. harry humphreys, the preliminary fbi analysis found the device contained petn. what is that? >> petn is a german explosive developed around the first world war. it doesn't detonate. it burns very rapidly.

it is used as a basic explosive for detonating cord. it is also used as a booster in many high-level military explosives. >> larry: if it had gone off inside that plane successfully what would have happened. >> i understand there was 80 grams. if the detonator, okay, in fact, was close enough -- >> larry: the button? >> the device that detonates the petn would have penetrated the skin and because he was sitting over one of the fuel tanks in the aircraft the fuel in the aircraft would have accelerated. >> larry: kill the whole plane? >> absolutely. >> larry: why do you think he was doing it on the ground not in the air. >> he wasn't doing it on the ground, he was approaching. >> larry: why not 35,000 feet? >> there are several schools of

thought. he was fighting with himself mentally or he wanted to be close enough to the airport or a landing area where we would have seen clearly that it was, in fact, an explosion. it wasn't something lost over the atlantic ocean. >> larry: we'll be back with more right after this.

>> larry: peter bergen, how, if anything, what, if anything, surprises you the most about this incident? >> well, it is not very surprising, but it does say something about al qaeda modus operandi. commercial aviation is the hardest target in the world

right now yet this guy almost brought this plane down out of the sky. that is years and years after 9/11. we have seen al qaeda try to do this going back in the mid '90s where they successfully detonated a bomb where they killed a japanese businessman. detonating a bomb on a plane is in the al qaeda playbook for a decade and a half. this is not a new thing. the fact this guy was almost able to pull this off is surprising. it is part of a pattern. we saw this in 2006, the reason you can't bring liquids on a plane because of the plan to detonate on seven planes. if that plan succeeded 1,500 would be dead, mostly americans and canadians. if this plan had succeeded it would have killed almost 300 people. >> larry: frances, his father is warning people. how does he get aboard that

plane? >> that is one of the things i suspect the congressional overseers will be asking the department of homeland security and intelligence officials. that is a good sign. the notion that this guy's father reported his radicalization and tried to alert people is a good sign. we saw that recently in northern virginia where the families of five pakistani young men who disappeared reported that to the fbi. in saudi arabia there is a program by the ministry of the interior to encourage families to report disappearances and radicalization of young men there. this is an important tipping program so law enforcement and administration officials know who to target. what happened to that information when the father first, can we confirm he did, in fact, report him missing and radicalized to u.s. security officials or the us embassy. if they got that information

what did they do with it? often times the mere fact of radicalization may not be enough to connect him to a threat to aviation. he should have been a selectee so he should have gotten special scrutiny if he tried to board an aircraft. >> larry: eric margolis, how do you win a war on terrorism? isn't a terrorist born right now today? >> i think it is wrong to call it a war on terrorism. it is a police action on terrorism. it is not a war it can win. as long as the u.s. is deeply involved in the affairs of the third world we are going to face attacks and terrorism. this event in detroit is the opening salvo of deeper u.s. involvement in yemen as peter mentioned in the beginning. we have u.s. special forces, u.s. aircraft involved in combat operations in yemen.

a three or four way civil war there. yemen is fast becoming the afghanistan of the arabian peninsula. we are right there entering into this. so as long as we do this, we are exposing ourselves. we need better security as they found in europe. they have been facing this problem a lot longer particularly in france. one of osama bin laden's objectives is to give us in the united states a national nervous breakdown. we musn't let him do this by overreacting to these events however ugly and nasty they are. >> larry: harry, how do you get petn? >> it is a military explosive. it has to be derived through a group -- >> larry: al qaeda could get it? >> al qaeda. it is clearly a strong indicator this guy had support from an al qaeda type franchise or al

qaeda. >> larry: how does he get through security? >> well, look at the path that this guy took. he first got aboard a klm aircraft in lagos, nigeria. then he went to amsterdam. i understand he was held in a sanitized area, in other words an area that would segregate him from the general population of the airport because he is transiting to another transatlantic flight. no screening. he is being held in this sanitized area. now from there to detroit. so what we're talking about is a possibility now, i'm saying a possibility, that the only screening this guy had was lagos, nigeria. give me a break, okay. if he did, in fact, get screened in -- >> larry: not screened in amsterdam? >> if he was screened in amsterdam, the screening was

typical to what we do today. certainly he did not have what we call whole body image screening which is the only answer to this problem. >> larry: back with more after this. this is a honda pilot.

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attendants' eyes and grabbed the fire extinguishers and we smelled a bunch of smoke. >> larry: peter bergen, were we lucky here? >> very lucky. you know, if the device had gone off, i'm not a mechanical engineer, but, you know, in previous kinds of cases where this type of activity has been prosecuted, for instance in the case of 2006, british prosecutors did a test on a plane and showed that the liquid explosive plan of 2006 would have brought down the planes involved. similarly with richard reed, if he managed to detonate that thing, the american airlines flight between miami and paris may well have gone down. i think we got incredibly lucky. this would have been a transformational event almost as big as 9/11. in the post-9/11 world if you

can bring down a commercial jet, that changes international tourism on an already damaged global economy. >> fran the person who has your job now that you had before, what is she doing now? >> it is he. it is john brennan. >> larry: i got you confused with napolitano. >> john has two things he is focused on predictably right now. one is working with law enforcement intelligence to understand in detail what happened in the different places around the world, yemen, the uk, where he traveled, who he communicate eicated with. he is working with janet napolitano at the department of homeland security and making sure that whatever they learn on the intelligence and law enforcement side they are figuring that into the way they screen people not only as u.s. airports but sharing that to the extent they can, the hints, the

pieces of the puzzle with screeners around the world so they know what to look about. >> larry: by the way, mrs. napolitano will be on with john king tomorrow morning. does this make you pessimistic about where we are going with this? >> no. but i think we have to be patient with it. this is going to be a long, long struggle. we have to, as i said, grit our teeth. it eventually will die down. these things always do. there will be accidents. i was on a lufthansa flight that was hijacked on the way to egypt back to new york. the hijacker was an ethiopian who wanted to crash the plane into wall street. he got a gun through security in frankfurt because he had a hat on and put the gun underneath his hat the inspectors who were using wands and patting them down forgot to look under his

hat. it was busy, a rush just like now, christmas rush. you can't stop every attack. he who defends everything defends nothing. flying is still safer than driving. we have 42,000 people a year killed on the roads. as i said, we must encounter a small risk when we travel. events like this will make it harder all the time. >> larry: harry, are you a passenger and something occurs, every passenger is considered a member of the israeli army. >> that's correct. >> larry: should americans and others take action? >> basically they have. since 9/11 i have said the strongest defense we have is an aware flying public. they have stopped every incident since 9/11. they know it is not a trip to cuba, it is death. like the young man and the rest

of the flying population on the aircraft did, they stopped this thing from going any further. that's a good thing. that plus the ballistic barrier between the pilots' area and the general population will stop everything i think from now on. >> larry: thank you all very much. see you again, hope on better circumstances. every time we see harry, something terrible happens. more from one of flight 253's heroes and what he witnessed in 60 seconds. without interrupting what you're doing ? does it alert you without interrupting what you're doing so you can continue to, say, send a video to someone ? holding your messages till you're ready to view them ? droid does. the notification panel-- your own personal gatekeeper. in a world of doesn't...

>> larry: as we've reported a dutch terrorist, jasper schuringa is being called a hero for courageous actions he took. here is more of the account of what happened in his exclusive interview with cnn. >> when we heard the first explosion people were looking around, okay, this is not good. what is going on. the first person shouted fire.

i got to my senses. first it was a pop. 30 seconds later the smoke started to fill up on the left side beneath this person. he put something on fire that was in his pants. apparently it was dripping. the liquid or anything like that dripped down on the floor and two pillows got ignited and it went very quick. we were all just reacting to the fire and everything was panicking. the whole plane was screaming. but the suspect, he, like, he didn't say a word. i basically reacted directly. i didn't think. when you hear a pop on the plane, you are awake, trust me. as far as i could tell, he was traveling alone. he was calm. he was shaking but didn't resist anything. he was just sitting there. he looked like a normal guy as well. it was just hard to believe that he was actually going to try to blow up this plane. i burned my hands because obviously, i was trying to put out the fire and the object i

was holding. it was on fire a little bit. i had to damp it with my other hand i had to damp the fire because it was growing. there were people standing around because, like, the person next to the suspect, he was, like, he freaked out. he stood up because there was a fire. i think there were like a lot of people trying to help later on. we had a very brave flight attendants so thank you for those people. they are also heroes. yeah. together we maintained the suspect and we got a safe landing. >> larry: we'll be back with more experts from amsterdam and london right after this. (announcer) pillsbury bakes up bigger than the leading store brand.

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>> larry: let's go to central london. standing by nic robertson, cnn international correspondent and paul cruikshank. he has contributed to cnn's terrorism coverage including the terrific documentary yt if the footsteps of bin laden." paul, what is your take on the events of the last two days. >> reporter: we have seen a serious plot averted that could have killed hundreds of people in the skies, hundreds of more people on the ground. in 2006 here in london around ten individuals plotted a major attack to bring down airliners over the atlantic ocean. this seems like that in many respects. al qaeda came back to targeting airliners, in 9/11, in '95, an attempt over the pacific of

american airliners. it has the hallmark of al qaeda. it is too early to tell if it is linked to that terrorist organization, larry. >> larry: nic, how concerned are the british muslim radicalism in the uk? do they see this suspect as an on/off operator or part of a wider network? >> they haven't -- we haven't heard from british officials specifically befoabout the susp at the moment. they're concerned helping u.s. authorities with their investigation. but if you look at what the continue tell against services have said in the past few years here, they have 2,000 suspects they're following. and about 30 active terror plots they're following at any one time. it's a big problem here. it's something that they're watching very carefully. and it's also something they're very aware of, they cannot know everything all the time, and just below this radicalized level of people who want to have

active terror plots, there are people who want to radicalize the population, people who go out on the streets and say the queen should be kicked out of buckingham palace. it should be turned into a mosque and islamic law run. there's so much, instead of obscuring the real radicals behind this. >> joining us from amsterdam as well as cnn international anchor richard quest. what's the latest in terms of the dutch investigation, how the suspect got on the plane with an explosive device? >> good evening, larry. the interesting thing about the investigation is they are saying that everything actually was well performed and the security checks the suspect went through were entirely normal. he arrived here from the flight

originating in nigeria. he transferred over a three-hour period to the northwest flight. he went through a metal detector, x-ray machine or his bags did. as they point out to me here, larry. if he did have s have something on him such as we're hearing in his underwear or similar. that would not have been picked up by the metal detector. and no secretary research was required then. tonight we know that second researches are being introduced much more widely at airports around the world, larry. >> is it obvious here, somebody goofed? >> it's not absolutely clear, but there are a lot of red flags this time around. the investigation will be starting right now, and i have a

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any indication the suspect wasn't working alone, he may have had some help inside the airport? >> there's absolutely no evidence of that tonight. nothing i've heard from officials here, and nothing -- i mean, i know of to suggest that from the airport's point of view. >> paul, this is your baby. you were on top of this scene and covered it so well.

is it going to get worse? >> well, at the moment, there's more radicalization going on. the internet playing a role there. more americans going to pakistan, getting trained over there. there's a lot of radicalization here in europe, the united kingdom. this causes concern, but we're seeing an emerging backlash from the muslim communities around the world against al qaeda. it's starting to hit home from saudi arabia, pakistan. >> what is security like at heathrow? >> security is such that you have to go through a very strict screening surge, where bags out, shoes off, belts off, jackets

off, computers out of bags. they also have been running one of these testing screening systems in the past year or so, where they literally will photograph your body with -- it's not clear if it's an x-ray, but they can see everything that you're wearing, and what you might have on in terms of undergarments. there's a detection system they've been trying out, but it's not something they've put into general use. it's time-consuming. it has to take three shots of mapping your body in different angles, this is not something that's been put into use. other than that, there are armed police officers always on patrol these days at heathrow airport. and the airport authorities are very conscious that they are a high profile target for any would-be terrorists. >> rick, what about security at the amsterdam airport, a very

famous airport? >> yes, it's not only -- i think it's important to say tonight, they're one of the best run and most important airports in europe. they're not some rink can i dink airport in the middle of nowhere. security is taken extremely seriously, at the forefront of not only procedures, but of equipment. the new gadget out there, will have it, and remember larry that it's one of the major european hubs and bases for delta airlines and the old northwest through their sky team alliance. it's not as if delta has one or two flights a day into this place. it's a major modern airport, and they'll be -- i know for a fact,

they told me today they're taking it seriously. >> should people be concerned about flying internationally? >> well, people shouldn't be too fearful, but there are real vulnerabilities, the powdery explosives, liquid explosives are very very difficult to detect, and that's why al qaeda is trying to use them and will be likely to try to use them again. western securities have to be vigilant every single day. >> was this timed to the time of the year, do you think? >> it's possible that it may be christmas day, it would be very shocking to a lot of americans to have this happen. to have hundreds of people killed in the air, hundreds of people like in lockerbie killed on the ground. it's possible there is a link to the season. >> we thank all of our guests for