On Christmas Day, when the young, rich Nigerian jihadi, Umar Abdulmutallab, failed to detonate the 80g of PETN explosive sewn into his underpants -- which could have blown the plane apart mid-flight -- nearly 300 lives were saved and Al Qaeda was kept from striking a major tactical and psychological blow to the United States and its allies.

The hasty responses by senior government officials in the immediate aftermath has raised questions as to whether those charged with protecting the aviation domain understand the adaptive nature of the threat posed by globalized terrorism. What can be said with certainty is that the narrowly averted Al Qaeda attack on Northwest Flight 253 highlights three critical developments shaping the current aviation security landscape.

Al Qaeda is willing and able

First, Al Qaeda is not only keen but - perhaps more importantly - is able to strike "the far enemy" nearly nine years after Sept. 11, 2001. Civil aviation remains a prime target for the network despite the many measures put in place to "harden" the system after 9/11. This most recent attempt, following Richard Reid's shoe bomb plot and the 2006 plot to explode several aircraft mid-fight over the Atlantic Ocean, underscore the network's goal to hit the aviation sector again.

As publicity is the oxygen of terrorism, as Margaret Thatcher famously put it, global media attention resulting from a strike on aircraft will always be a strong incentive for terrorists to target the sector. Bringing nearly four decades of perspective to the issue of aviation security and terrorism, Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews, said that "aviation is an inherently vulnerable form of transport and as a target offers the possibility of a great deal of publicity for the group. Al Qaeda is still well aware of the enormous effect of 9/11 on the US and would want to emulate those attacks in terms of mass killings."

While it is clear Al Qaeda seeks to achieve another terrorist spectacular in the West, that is only one half of the issue. The more important question is whether the group is able to carry out a strike. The Christmas Day plot indicated the answer is yes.  Therefore, the key challenge going forward is to plug the gaps in the current security and intelligence system. In other words, the regime must evolve.

Evolution and adaptation drive the interplay between terrorism and counterterrorism.  A historic problem in civil aviation, however, is that the offensive capabilities of the bad guys tend to outpace the defensive capabilities of the good guys. Paul Wilkinson notes that "the streak of terrorist sabotage incidents using guns in the 1980s, for example, led to airports' use of magnetometer archways to detect metal. There was no way to detect plastic explosives, and that was not rectified until after Lockerbie."

Furthermore, "terrorists are well aware that the magnetometer archway is not a satisfactory way of spotting explosives held to the body or in body orifices and that was a gap that Al Qaeda exploited through the latest attacks. We have not plugged that hole." However good the machine is, he wrote, "if it is not being properly operated by people who understand its capabilities and weaknesses, the fallibility factor increases."

Al Qaeda franchises are empowered

The second key development shaping the current threat environment is that Al Qaeda's franchise groups are becoming more diffuse and internationally oriented with regard to operations. Radicalized individuals seeking advanced explosives training in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia creates an even more complex global counterterrorism landscape for intelligence agencies and other aviation security stakeholders.

The Christmas Day operative, Abdulmutallab, had been associated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, though he was probably radicalized in the UK while attending university. Following Muttalib's arrest in Detroit, AQAP released a statement on December 28 indicating that "our brother," Abdulmutallab, "was able to breach all the modern and sophisticated technologies and checkpoints at the airports around the world"... which ..."has dealt a huge blow to the myth of American and global intelligence services and showed how fragile its structures are."  AQAP took some responsibility, indicating that the attack resulted from "the direct coordination of the mujahedeen in the peninsula."

Abdulmutallab's own statements to the FBI are consistent as he reportedly told investigators that he received training from Al Qaeda in Yemen and that more suicide bombers were on their way. Moreover, the tactic of concealing the PETN explosive was already an established AQAP operational signature.

On 27 August 2009, for example, an AQAP operative concealed PETN in his anal cavity and detonated it in an attempt to assassinate Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Muhammad Bin Naif.  That neither Abdulmutallab nor the would-be assassin were caught out by existing behavioral profiling may suggest that Al Qaeda is selecting cool operatives or providing effective training to beat the measures currently in place.

This development indicates that Al Qaeda franchise groups and fellow travelers have obtained a significantly higher degree of operational ability and international ambition than was previously thought, and that the current counterterrorism regime has significant and somewhat obvious vulnerabilities.

While planning and operational details for associated networks may not be coming from the Al Qaeda core, ideological direction and strategic leadership is still being given from the center along the Pakistan Afghanistan border country. On Jan. 24, there was a release of a credible Bin Laden message that publicly endorsed the AQAP's operation; further encouraging it to carry out attacks on the far enemy outside these groups' traditionally local operational areas.

In light of this development, the threat environment has become exceedingly complex with a higher number of actors across the world that must be monitored.

Other Al Qaeda threat groups include Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM, formerly GSPC) in North and West Africa; Al Shabab in Somalia; and Lashkar E Taiba (LeT) and Harakat Ul Jihad Al Islami (HUJI and HUJI-B in Bangladesh) in South Asia, to name a few. That is not to mention the affiliated cells of these groups that have a significant presence in many diaspora communities across the West.

Terrorists always seek the path of least resistance to conduct attacks. Since the global salafi jihadi network has a transnational presence, a gap in the system anywhere can have repercussions thousands of miles away. Recently in South Asia, for example, the Al Qaeda-linked network, HUJI-B, has reportedly been targeting the Western commercial aviation system originating in India or possibly Britain. HUJI-B's alleged targeting of British-bound aircraft appears to have led the United Kingdom to raise its terror level from high to severe, which means that an attack is "highly likely."

Furthermore, AQIM and LeT have been on the radar recently regarding potential threats to general aviation (GA). GA is all aviation that is not commercial or military-related. According to an anonymous homeland security counternarcotics aviation threat specialist, AQIM has said that the group has access to an international fleet of aircraft. The context of this capability is with regard to the illegal business of trafficking cocaine from South America to ungoverned spaces in West Africa. The upshot of this, according to the analyst, is that "militant organizations - including groups like the FARC and Al Qaeda - have the "power to move people and material and contraband anywhere around the world with a couple of fuel stops."

While these terrorist affiliations have not been conclusively validated, there is obvious potential for this fleet to be used in airborne suicide operations on urban populations and other aviation targets in America and Europe.

GA is certainly one of many additional security holes that the authorities need to proactively protect.  Indeed, as Anthony Kimery has identified previously in Homeland Security Today, "GA is a major national vulnerability, but political pressures, a strong lobby and lax oversight are making it nearly impossible to close the gap despite widespread recognition of the problem by authorities across the government."

As AQIM's transatlantic aviation fleet continues to run uninterrupted, this vulnerability becomes increasingly acute.

If the past has taught us anything, the operational trends and diffusion of capabilities all underscore Al Qaeda's greatest strength - it is an adaptive organization. When the US strikes great blows against the core group in Pakistani tribal areas, the movement in some ways is decapitated. On the other hand, however, the offensive strategy of AQ and the Taliban has accelerated the diffusion of its operational planning to its associated groups and affiliated cells around the world.

Proactive intelligence still lynchpin for security adaptation

Third, without well-synced, timely intelligence systems, global counterterrorism and aviation security regimes will always lag behind the terrorists.

The aviation industry faces a tough problem.  Few industries are as global, and fewer yet are as attractive targets for terrorism as the aviation domain.  In order to defend itself against terrorist threats that could appear virtually anywhere in the system, the industry must achieve the right blend of strategic and tactical intelligence.

Indeed, according to Andy Blackwell, head of aviation security at Virgin Atlantic Airways, "enhancing our knowledge of how and why terrorists plot against their targets makes a huge difference to our security strategy."

The "why," or the ideological aspect driving Al Qaeda, is largely understood; but the "how," from an operational perspective, is a rapidly evolving phenomenon requiring a level of intelligence sharing across borders, sectors and disciplines heretofore unseen."

Since the threats and vulnerabilities have largely been identified, intelligence remains the cornerstone of efficacious counterterrorism generally, and in the aviation domain particularly.

Perhaps one of the lowest hanging fruits is open source intelligence. With the proliferation of Internet communication technologies, it represents an immensely valuable resource, and has the added benefit of being easier to share internationally across governments and sectors. There are several commercial organizations that monitor and provide actionable intelligence on terrorist networks (disclosure: I work for one).

The myriad security measures that were breached in the case of the Christmas Day bomber have been documented extensively elsewhere. As the capacities of terrorist adversaries fail to diminish, and international aspects become more diffuse and complex, the need for better intelligence sharing between business and government increases even more. Intelligence systems should flag possible threats before passengers go through the security check so that those suspected for any reason can be taken aside and interrogated before they get on the flight.

Without enhanced, more international, and more synced-up intelligence frameworks in place, the aviation domain will remain vulnerable to a persistent and capable terrorist enemy.

John Solomon is global director of terrorism research at World-Check, currently on attachment to the UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau with the City of London Police. Proficient in Arabic, he holds a Master's degree in Middle East and Central Asian Security Studies from the University of St. Andrews and is pursuing his doctorate in the Department of War Studies, King's College London. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .