Christmas Day bomber may have attended Islamic school in Houston!

(Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - photo source:  London Telegraph)

 New information suggests Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Christmas Day bomber, may have attended an Islamic school for a short time in Houston, Texas:

...Shaykh Waleed Basyouni, vice president for the AlMaghrib Institute in Houston and imam of the Clear Lake Islamic Center, said he would provide more details on 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s studies in Houston this afternoon. Basyouni had asked a team of staffers to investigate a report that Abdulmutallab had attended classes at the institute in 2008.

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security said that Abdulmutallab made a prior trip to the U.S. before the bombing attempt, flying into Houston Aug. 1, 2008, and leaving 16 days later.

...The international institute is a nonprofit that teaches Islamic studies. It has a student body totaling more than 20,000, Basyouni said, and conducts seminars in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.

...FBI agents have visited the Sheraton Houston Brookhollow Hotel at 3000 North Loop West, where Abdulmutallab is believed to have stayed.

 

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Also see: 

Airline attacker spent time in Houston

News 8 Austin -

Federal officials are following leads as to why Abdul-Mutallab was in Houston. The details are classified.

College pal: What happened to the humble AbdulMutallab I knew?

CNN - Nic Robertson -

As a student, the man now accused of trying to blow up a jet was president of the school's Islamic Society from 2006 to 2007 in London-- a society, Rafiq said, ...