The co-pilot of the FlyDubai plane who allegedly attacked the plane’s captain and attempted to crash a flight bound for Israel on Wednesday is an Omani national who was previously suspended from flying by Oman Air after being identified as a security risk, according to senior intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Multiple sources familiar with the investigation identified the suspected attacker as 29-year-old Hamam Al Hammami.
The officials told ABC News that Al Hammami, while working as a co-pilot trainee for Oman Air in 2024, was found to be in possession of extremist materials. The suspect was allowed to continue working for the airline in an administrative role, the sources said.
Read more…
Source: ABC News
Sign up for the Counter-IED Report Newsletters
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Chilling picture shows female Isil fighter holding child moments before detonating suicide vest
July 8, 2017
At first sight the picture appears to show a mother cradling her young child as she flees an Islamic State-held area of Mosul. But a closer look reveals she is holding a trigger., which she will pull seconds later. An Iraqi TV station captured the moment before a suspected female Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) suicide ...
- Man arrested at Liverpool airport over Manchester Arena attack
July 7, 2017
A 19-year-old man has been arrested at Liverpool John Lennon Airport in connection with the Manchester Arena bombing. He was held on suspicion of offences contrary to the Terrorism Act and remains in custody, said Greater Manchester Police. It is understood he was on an inbound flight to the UK. A property on Thelwall Avenue in the Fallowfield ...
- Queensland specialist police called out to record numbers of home-made explosives
July 2, 2017
Specialist police are being called to deal with a soaring number of home-made explosives in Queensland. Calls for help to the Explosive Ordnance Response Team increased by 63 per cent from 2005 to 2011 and almost 160 per cent from 2012 to 2015. While there were 42 incident responses in 2011-12, that number rose to 109 in 2014-15. Authorities say ...
- Troops kill five Boko Haram terrorists, detonate IEDs
July 2, 2017
Troops of 3 Battalion, 22 Brigade of the Nigerian Army have killed five Boko Haram terrorists, just as their colleagues from 151 Battalion on a routine fighting patrol within Lt. Col Abu Ali Range discovered freshly dug hole ready for Improvised Explosive Device (IED) by suspected elements of Boko Haram terrorists. In a statement, Army Spokesman, Brig. ...
- Unmanned Systems the New Weapon for Terrorists
July 1, 2017
JIDO fears that improvised threat devices may be the latest drone delivery packages. Long a tool of allies trying to foil improvised explosive devices, unmanned systems now may be entering the fray against friendly forces. Both terrorists and nation-states are striving to employ these systems, especially airborne platforms, to deploy new types of improvised threats against ...
- Ukrainian military intelligence officer killed by car bomb in Kiev
June 27, 2017
A high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence official has been killed by a car bomb in Kiev in what authorities are calling an act of terrorism. An explosive device destroyed the Mercedes being driven by Col Maksim Shapoval at 8.15am local time, police said. The car’s bonnet was blown open and its roof and driver side door almost completely ...
- Commando Raids on ISIS Yield Vital Data in Shadowy War
June 25, 2017
One late afternoon in April, helicopter-borne American commandos intercepted a vehicle in southeastern Syria carrying a close associate of the Islamic State’s supreme leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The associate, Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, was a rare prize whom United States Special Operations forces had been tracking for months: a midlevel but highly trusted operative skilled in raising money; ...
- Fighting Boko Haram: newly trained squads receive equipments
June 25, 2017
The squad of 30 non commissioned officers is composed of six units that are highly skilled in the art. They have just returned from the United State’s of America’s military base in Jordan where they were trained for close to four months (3months, 2 weeks). One member of the squad, Sergent Kiylaka Elvis said they were trained ...
- Iran Detains Islamic State Linked Group
June 24, 2017
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry is saying that its forces have detained members of a group linked to the Islamic State group it says intended to carry out terrorist acts in holy cities across the country. The ministry says its forces confiscated three Kalashnikov rifles, night vision goggles, three suicide belts, three phones for remote detonation, a large ...
- Turkish police catch five ISIL suicide bombers near Syrian border
June 24, 2017
Police have apprehended five suspected suicide bombers from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Turkey’s border with Syria, the governor’s office of the southern province of Hatay stated on June 24. “Five attackers who were sent to our country from Syria to carry out suicide bombings were caught in an operation on ...
- Saudi security foils terror plot targeting Mecca Grand Mosque and pilgrims
June 24, 2017
Saudi Arabian security forces have foiled a terror plot targeting the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, exchanging gunfire with one of the suspects who blew himself up inside a home on Friday, the interior ministry said. The ministry described the plot as part of “self-serving schemes managed from abroad”. Five people, including a ...
- Pakistan: 11 dead after car bomb near police chief’s office in Quetta
June 23, 2017
A powerful car bombing near the office of the provincial police chief in southwestern Pakistan on Friday has killed 11 people and wounded 20, officials said. The explosion near the police chief’s office in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, was powerful enough that it was heard across the city, shattering windows of nearby buildings, said ...
- Qatari charity on new terror list has ties to USAID, UN
June 15, 2017
A charity in Qatar that was recently sanctioned for links to terrorism by some Arab countries has worked with the U.S. government’s main aid agency and several United Nations agencies, Fox News has learned. The sanctions came as a result of fallout from a growing diplomatic fight between a Saudi Arabia-led coalition and Qatar over what ...
- Why Qatar is the focus of terrorism claims
June 13, 2017
The dispute that has seen Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies isolate Qatar stems from allegations that the tiny gas-rich nation is sponsoring extremist groups which are destabilising the Middle East. This is not the first time Qatar’s neighbours have expressed their displeasure over its individualist foreign policy – diplomatic relations were severed for nine months ...
- Syria says up to 5,000 Chinese Uighurs fighting in militant groups
May 11, 2017
Up to 5,000 ethnic Uighurs from China’s violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang are fighting in various militant groups in Syria, the Syrian ambassador to China said on Monday, adding that Beijing should be extremely concerned about it. China is worried that Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people who speak a Turkic language, have gone to Syria ...