Airplane incident:

US probing al Qaeda links

US: The Obama administration said on Sunday it was investigating whether al Qaeda was involved in a Christmas Day attempt to blow up a passenger jet and sought to head off Republican attacks over its anti-terrorism measures.

The Nigerian suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was moved to prison from a hospital. He was not expected to appear at a 2 p.m./(1900 GMT) court hearing on Monday in Detroit, where prosecutors plan to seek an order to obtain his DNA.

Abdulmutallab, 23, is charged with attempting to blow up a Northwest Airlines jumbo plane as it approached Detroit on a flight from Amsterdam with almost 300 people on board.

Asked whether al Qaeda was involved, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told ABC's "This Week" program, "That is now the subject of investigation and it would be inappropriate for me to say and inappropriate to speculate.

"Right now, we have no indication that it is part of anything larger," Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union."

Reuters