Intelligence flaws led to plane attack - Obama

HAWAII: President Barack Obama bluntly said Tuesday the thwarted Christmas Day airliner attack exploited a potentially "castastrophic" systemic failure in the US intelligence community.

Obama vowed to hold security agencies to account for gaping flaws, as it emerged that the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a packed Northwest jet only recently left Yemen, a suspected haven for extremists.

"A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable," Obama said in a statement, breaking his Hawaii vacation for a second straight day to update Americans on the attack, claimed by Al-Qaeda. "There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security," Obama said.

"We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake."

Obama complained that the father of would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had warned US diplomats in Abuja that his son was an extremist threat yet the man was still able to board a US jet with explosives sewn into his underpants.

Threat information on Abdulmutallab was passed by diplomats to the US intelligence community and landed him on a broad terrorist "watch list.

"HONOLULU, Wednesday, AFP