they want, at least that they get enough. >> and with that, thanks for joining us. i'm tom foreman. for everyone at 360, we hope you keep your job, keep your patience, and keep your spirits up through a happy new year. >> larry: tonight -- christmas flight terror, a 23-year-old nigerian man is now 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? and were his father's warnings about h about hissed 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 airliner. 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. because you're gathering on the fly. so let's go back to the beginning. what do we know, know? what happened? whoo do we know? >> 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 the skies over detroit 33 hours ago. let me walk you back. let me take you there. it is shortly before noon christmas day. you're on board 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 light. they think a passenger set off fireworks. it it's much much more sinister that. 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 might have hoped. instead of blowing the plane up, it starts a fire and causes chaos. but, again, thanks to the quick reaction to the passengers on board and the professionalism of the crew, the flames are put out, the man subdued, the plane lands safely, he's taken into custody. all right. fast-forward, 24 hours, today. suddenly a very 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 while trying to carry out the terrorist attack. there you have federal authorities questioning him and saying, first of all, how do you feel? he says, you know what? i feel a lot better than i did yesterday. he's speaking almost perfect english. he's apparently very nonplus, very casual. the charges are read against him. he's charged with 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

all their baggage. and when they're on the plane, the last hour of the flight, they're not allowed to leave their seats,get up for any reason, can't retrieve 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. jeanne meserve -- jeanne is our cnn homeland security correspondent -- safe to assume this was a suicide mission? if so, why is he waiting until it lands? >> those are some questions we are still looking at. yeah, they're calling this an attem attempted terrorist event. apparently he was going to commit suicide and allegedly was going to 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 from investigators yet. there's a lot of speculation about what it could be.

it could have been he was looking to maximize damage on the ground. also perhaps it would be easier to claim responsibility if the wreckage was found as opposed to being lost in the ocean, let's say. those are some of the theories floating around, but investigators are being very tightlipped at this point in time, larry. >> larry: how do we know, know, jeanne, that it wasn't just a 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'll tell you, i talked to a former government official familiar with aviation security, and he sees indications that this is something this guy did not do on his own. first he had this petn, a very volatile and 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. then the explosions began. this former official saying, gee, that he had that cover story, knew to use the blanket, that he spent time in the bathroom doing -- we're not sure if he was mixing something up in there or praying or what he might have been doing. but all of those things, this individual believes, point to the fact that he may not have been acting on his own, that somewhere, somehow he had gotten some kind of instructions. of course they're going to be trying to figure that out and where he got that petn. >> larry: nic robertson is in central london outside the suspect's last known address. nic, what are the authorities doing? what are they looking for in that building?

>> reporter: larry, i think what they were looking for when they first went in is 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 here 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 who july p jumped up and took

matters into their own hands. what stands out the most to me is the screening procedures this guy went through in amsterdam are almost identical to 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 just know he was flying from lagos, nigeria, to amsterdam on a connecting flight. so he had about a three-hour layover there, larry. one of the passengers said that they did notice this man peaaci. 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. (announcer) nothing matches that dentist level of clean. but you can take home that dentist smooth clean feeling with oral-b rechargeable brushes. dentist inspired cupping action sweeps away up to twice as much plaque as a regular manual brush. oral-b rechargeable brushes. starting at $22.

>> larry: we'll be right back with the panel. president obama is in vacation in hawaii. what kind of briefings has he gotten about the terror incident and what is he saying? 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 very early this

morning, about 6:20 hawaii time, about five hours back from the east coast of the united states. the president got a secured briefing from his top aides, giving him the latest on the investigation, a lot of the inside information. the president yesterday ordered that security officials beef up security at airports around the country so he's been listening to these briefings, acting. one thing he has not done is come out publicly and said anything. there's been some criticism now, some republicans like congressman peter king of new york saying the president should be out there, reassuring the public. i put that to a senior administration official who said, look, this is not this president's style. it it's a sort of contrast to former president bush. whenever there was a terrorist event like this, president bush would be out there front and center. this president has a different style. he was out golfing today. he has a different style. he feels like he can move forward with his vacation, get the briefings in prieflt, let others hand will the public side

of this. his homeland security secretary is going on the sunday talk shows but he believes he should stay behind the scenes. >> larry: ed, quickly, no plan for him to cut that vacation short? >> reporter: no. we're getting no indications at all. he's planning to stay here, in fact, a couple of days past new year's, larry. >> larry: jeanne meserve, you wanted to add something? >> yes. i wanted to pick up on drew griffin's story on not picking up this explosive. there are a couple of machines that should have picked this up. 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. even if it was in his crotch

area, i'm told. 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. because of problem with maintenance. the issue apparently was that he only went through an x-ray machine which would pick up metal, not something like petn. so why wasn't he put through one of those screenings things? that depends on which government list he was on. we know 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. he must have been on the lower level list. >> larry: martin, the suspect's father recently retired chairman of one of nigeria's premier banks reportedly contacted a lot of security agencies and the american embassy several months ago expressing concern about his son. there is the photo of the father. that photo comes from the web site of the first bank of nigeria, the bank he retired from. what do we know about his reporting here and involvement,

martin? >> reporter: well, he obviously saw that his son was becoming more and more motivated by radical ideas and he grew greatly concerned about it. so much so he apparently contacted american authorities saying i'm worried about my son and what he may do next. it appears authorities heard that. american officials duly 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, knew of the young man, but no action was taken. >> larry: nic, is this a big story in england? >> reporter: it is, larry, because it does appear at this early stage that this is where the young man was radicalize. it has happened at universities here in london before to muslim students. there are radicalizers that radicalize some of the students. we know that because when he studied here between 2005 and 2008, studying

mechanical engineering, when he finished that course, his family said 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. so it is going to cause interest, but, again, there's another point here that's interesting, larry. and that is that that very same summer when his parents were getting worried about the potential for him to be radicalized, that very same summer he got at the u.s. embassy here in london a multiple entry visa for return visits for a number of careers to go in and out of the united states. so there are inconsistencies here, too. >> larry: one thing more quickly with drew griffin who will follow this program live around the clock coverage as we do here at cnn. drew, do you know what he has been officially charged with? >> yeah. larry, i have the charging papers. it's two counts here. i will try to get them exactly right for you.

he was charged -- gee whiz, larry. you'd have to ask me that one question. why don't we bring in jeanne meserve. he has been following that. >> larry: i got to get a break. jeanne, go ahead. >> bringing a destructive device on an airplane, the second one with. 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. you helped us donate almost $5 million dollars to charity. i chose the boys & girls clubs. it's an investment for the future. i chose the national wildlife federation. our pets are our kids. we chose the aspca. we're sharing the love again this year. because giving back feels good. on the subaru outback, motor trend's 2010 and two hundred fifty dollars gets donated to your choice of five charities.

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>> larry: a dutch tourist named jasper schuringa. you see delta on the plane. delta bought out northwest. fearing a passenger a few rows from him was trying to blow up the plane, jasper moved to southbound subdue the suspect. 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. but then the fire was actually getting a little worse because what i did didn't extinguish the fire. so i grabbed the suspect out of the seat because if he was wearing any more explosives it could be very dangerous because he was on fire. when i grabbed him from the seat the crew came with fire extinguishers and they got clear of all the flames. just to be sure, i grabbed him 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. cnn.com/larryki cnn.com/larrykipg. more after this.

>> 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." frances townsend, chief homeland security adviser for president george w. bush. eric margolis, author of "american raj." here in los angeles harry humphreys, founder and president of the global studies group and

former navy s.e.a.l. peter bergen, what is the yemen connection? >> well, by the suspect's own account, he received the device in yemen. yemen is probably arguably the second most important place in the world right now for al qaeda, substantial al qaeda presence there. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is the name of the group. we've 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've seen that yemen is sort of a hotbed of militancy. >> larry: frances, apparently the suspect is claiming ties to al qaeda and talking a lot. what do you make of that? >> well, that he's talking a lot is good news. but the real test will be, what can vergts and intelligence official corroborate?

as peter mentions, the terrorist ties back to yemen are extensive and long between al qaeda's affiliation with operatives there. remember, larry, our consulate in awed saudi arabia are was atd 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? >> well, unfortunately, it's becoming more and more typical. i've seen cases from morocco to indonesia of young, medium or

well-educated young muslims who are linked by one thing, and that is anger, fury, over the u.s. occupation of afghanistan and insigcited 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's spreading rapidly. we even had cases in toronto, in england, in spain, in france. i think we can expect more. >> larry: all right. harry humphreys, the preliminary fbi analysis has found the dwoes contained an explosive known as petn. what is that? >> petn is a german explosive developed around the first world war. it doesn't actually detonate. it burns very rapidly. it's used as a basic explosive

for what we with call detonating cord. it it's also used as a booster in many high-level military xmro explosives. >> larry: if it had gone off inside that plane successfully what would have happened? >> i understand there was 80 grams of explosive. if the detonator, okay, in fact, was close enough -- >> larry: the button? >> well, the device that detona detonates. in fact, set it off, the petn would have penetrated the skin and certainly because he was sitting over one of the fuel tanks in the aircraft, the fuel in the aircraft would have been accelerated. >> larry: killed 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 at thert35,00 feet? >> there are several schools of thought. one being 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: make a statement. >> exactly. >> 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, if's 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.

and that's years and years after 9/11. we've seen al qaeda try to do this going back in the mid-'90s where they successfully detonated on a a bomb on a plane and 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. but the fact that this guy was almost able to pull this off, that is pretty surprising. but it's 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 bombs on seven american canada airliners leaving heathrow. if that plan had succeeded, there would have been 1500 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? >> well, you you know, that's one of the things i suspect the

congressional overseers here in the united states will be asking the department of homeland security, intelligence and low law enforcement officials. that's a good sign, larry. we ought to be clear. the notion that this guy's father reported his radicalization and tried to tell 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. turns out they were arrested in pakistan. 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 intelligence officials know who to look for, know who to target. the question will be, what happened to that information when the father, first, can we confirm that he did, in fact, report him missing and radicalizeded to u.s. security officials or the u.s. embassy in lagos? two, if they got information, what did they do with it? oftentimes the mere fact of

radicalization may not be enough to connect him to a threat to aviation. but it should have tipped people that he should have been selectee as jeanne meserve explained so he got 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? >> well, i think it's wrong to call the war on terrorism. it's a police action against terrorism. it's not a war that you can really win. and as long as the u.s. is deeply involved in the affairs of the third world, particularly, we are going to face attacks and terror ifl. look, i think this event in detroit is the opening salvo of deeper you u.s. involvement in yemen as peter mentioned in the beginning. we have u.s. special forces now, i believe, and u.s. aircraft involved in operations in yemen, a three or four-way civil war

there. yemen is fast becoming the afghanistan of the arabian peninsula. and we're right there answering into this. so as long as we do this, we're exposing ourselves. we need better security, as they've found in europe. they've been facing this problem for 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? >> petn is a military explosive so it has to be derived through some sort of a group or agency that has the strength to -- >> larry: al qaeda could get it? >> al qaeda. it it's clearly a strong indicator that this guy definitely had support probably from al qaeda type franchisor 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. that's his first screening point. then he went to amsterdam and then was, as i understand, held in a sanitized area, in other words, an area that would segregate him from the general population of the airport because he's a traveler transiting to another transatlantic flight. okay. no screening. he's being held in the 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 a -- >> larry: not screened in amsterdam? >> well, 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 of course is the only answer to this problem. >> larry: back with more after this.

we were in the back of the plane and all of a sudden heard some screams. flight attendants ran up and down the aisles and i think we knew at the point when we saw the fear in the flight 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 in 2006, british prosecutors actually 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. because in the post-9/11 world we're sure you can bring down a commercial jet, that changes the global tourism, global aviation as a very nasty effect on an already rather damaged global

economy. >> larry: fran, the person who has your job now that you had before, what is she doing now? >> it's he. it's 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 communicated with. and who he's affiliated with in addition to how this happened. he's also 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 at u.s. airports but sharing that to the extent they can, the hints, the pieces of the puzzle with screeners around the world so people know -- those screeners know what to look for. >> larry: by the way, ms

ms. napolitano will be on with john king tomorrow morning. eric, these kind of incidents, does this make you pessimistic about where we're 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. and there will be accidents. you know, 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. it was a lesson that was forgotten until 2001. but he got a gun through security in frankfurt simply because he had a hat on and he put the gun underneath his hat. and the inspectors who were using wands and patting them down forgot to look under his hat. simple as that. it was busy. it's was a rush just like now, christmas rush. so you can't stop every attack.

he who defends everything defends nothing. and we shouldn't be panicked by it. flying is still safer than driving. we have 42,000 people a year killed on the roads in this country. as i said, we must encounter a small risk when you travel. but it's very small. events like this will make it harder all the time. >> larry: harry, if you're a passenger and something occurs, every passenger is considered suddenly a member of the israeli army. they're supposed to take action. >> that's right. >> larry: should americans and others take action? >> well with basically they have. since 9/11 i have said the strongest defense we have is an aware flying public. the aware flying public has stopped every incident since 9/11 because they know it's not a trip to cuba. it's death. so just like this 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. good to see you again. every time we see harry, trouble happens. more from one of flight 253's heroes and what he witnessed in 60 seconds.

>> larry: as we've reported, dutch tourist jasper schuringa is being called a hero for quick, courageous aks he took christmas day aboard flight 253 from amsterdam. 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's going on? then the first person shouted "fire." i got to my senses. okay, this is not good. 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. i think the liquid or anything like that, it dripped down on the floor and two pillows got, like, ignited. but it went very quick. like we all were just reacting to the fire and everybody was panicking. the whole plane was screaming. the suspect 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 just very calm. he was shaking, but he didn't resist anything. and he was just sitting there. he looked like a normal guy as well. but, you know, 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 very brave flight attendants that also helped. so thank you for those people. they're 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.

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>> larry: let's go to central london. standing by, nic robertson, cnn international correspondent and

paul cruikshank. a fellow at the nyu center at law and security. he has contributed to cnn's terrorism coverage including the terrific documentary "in the footsteps of bin laden." paul, what is your take on the events of the last two days? >> reporter: well being we', we 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 a lot like that in many respects. al qaeda has come back to targeting airliners time and time again. we saw 9/11, in '95, an attempt over the pacific of american airline irs. it has the hallmarks 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 authorities about muslim radicalism in the uk?

do they see this suspect as an off/on operator or part of a wider network? >> reporter: they haven't -- we haven't heard from british officials specifically about this suspect at the moment, the british government said they're very concerned. the prime minister said today he's concerned helping the u.s. authorities with the investigation. but if you look at what the intelligence services have said in the past few years here, they have 2,000 terror suspects that they're following and about 30 active terror plots that they're following at any one time. it is a big problem here. it's something that they're watching very careful le aly ans something they're very aware of. they can't know everything all the time. just below this radicalized level of people who want to act out terror plots, there are people who want to radicalize the population, people who say the queen should be kicked out

buckingham palace and there is a radical substrata that diffuses the ideased radicals have, obscuring the real radicals behind it. >> joining us from amsterdam as well as richard quest, cnn international anchor and corresponde correspondent, what's the latist on the dutch investigation as to how the suspect got on the plane with an explosive device? >> reporter: good evening, larry. the interesting thing about the dutch investigation is they are saying that everything actually was well performed and that the security checks that the suspect went through were entirely normal. he arrived here on the flight from lagos, nigeria. nigerian flights tend to be those that authorities take interest in any way because of immigration, fraud and other such issues. he then transferred over a

three-hour period to the northwest flight. he went through a metal detector, through the x-ray machine, or his bags did. but as they point out to me, larry, if he did 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, of course, no secondary search was required then. tonight, of course, we now also know that secondary searches are being introduced much more widely at airports around the world, larry. >> paul, is it obvious here somebody goofed? >> well, it's not absolutely clear, but there were a lot of red flags obviously this time around. the investigation will be starting right now, and a lot of soul searching will definitely be going on, larry. >> larry:or nick and paul and richard, stay with us. we'll be right back. smoo you can get a cc, jetta, or top safety-rated tiguan

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>> reporter: richard quest, in amsterdam, was there any indication that the suspect wasn't working alone, that he might have had some help inside the airport? >> reporter: 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 this was anything from a lone wolf in that sense from the airport's point of view. >> larry: paul, this is your baby. you were on top of the scene and covered it so well. is it going to get worse?

>> well, at the moment, there are worrying signs. there is 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, particularly in the united kingdom. so they're real causes for concern. but, at the same time, what we're seeing is an emerging backlash from the muslim communities around the world against al qaeda. and that message from the muslim communities against al qaeda is starting to hit home from saudi arabia to libya to pakistan to a lot of other countries. and that does give us grounds for optimism, larry. >> larry: nic, what is security like at heathrow? >> reporter: security is such that you have to go through a very strict screening search where bags out, shoes off, belt off, jackets off, computers ott

of bags. they also have been running one with 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, what you might have on in terms of undergarments. so there's a detection system they've been trying out, but it's not something they've put into general use because it is very time consuming. it has to sort of take three shots at mapping your body at different angles, and generally this isn't 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 there are very conscious that they are a high-profile target for any would-be terrorist. britain is on threat of terrorism from northern ireland as well. >> reporter: richard, what about

security at amsterdam airport, a very famous airport? >> reporter: yes. it's not only a very famous airport. i think it's important to say tonight it's one of the best-run and most important airports of europe. this is not some rinky dink little airport in the middle of nowhere. security here is taken extremely seriously. it's at the forefront not only of procedures but of equipment. if there's a new gadget out there, they will have it. and, remember, larry, that this airport is one of the major european hubs and bases for delta airlines and the old northwest through their sky team alliance with air france and klm. it's not as if delta has one or two flights a day into this place, it's up to a dozen parts of day from different parts of the u.s. it's a major modern airport, and i know for' fact because they told me today they've taken

what's taken place exceptionally serious le. >> larry: paul, should people be concerned about flying internationally? >> well, people shouldn't be too fearful. people have to fly. but there are real vulnerables the airliners have. these powdery explosives, liquid explosives, are very, very difficult to detect, larry. that's why al qaeda are trying to use them and will be likely to try to use them again. western security services have to be vigilant every single day, larry. >> larry: paul, was this timed to the time. year, do you think? >> it's possible that it may be, you know, christmas day. it would be very shocking to a lot of americans to have hundreds of people killed in the air, hundreds of people also likely, like in lockerby, killed on the ground. so possibly there's a link to the season. >> larry: we thank all of our guests on this v