Tom Joscelyn of The Weekly Standard writes of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s tenure as president of the Islamic Society at the University College of London:

From January 29, to February 2, 2007, the Islamic Society hosted “a series of lectures” as part of its “War on Terror Week.” One of the lectures, according to the Times (UK), was entitled “Jihad v. Terrorism” and billed as “a lecture on the Islamic position with respect to jihad.”

The lecture was given by Asim Qureshi, who is a “senior researcher” at [former Gitmo detainee] Begg’s organization, Cage Prisoners. Qureshi’s own words make his real purpose plain to see as he is, at times, an overt jihadist. During one particularly troublesome episode, Qureshi was captured in an online video ranting at a rally hosted by Hizb ut Tahrir, an organization that the BBC has found “promotes racism and anti-Semitic hatred, calls suicide bombers martyrs and urges Muslims to kill Jewish people.” Indeed, the video shows Qureshi praising his “brothers and sisters fighting in Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, [and] Afghanistan.” Qureshi tells the crowd: “We know that it is incumbent upon all of us to support the jihad of our brothers and sisters in these countries when they are facing the oppression of the West.” Qureshi and the crowd then break into a chant of “Allah Akhbar.”

This is the Begg associate that Abdulmutallab invited to speak about jihad during his 2007 “War on Terror Week.”

Note: video posted on YouTube on August 19, 2006

Joscelyn continued:

With respect to jihad, Abdulmutallab and his cronies are all for it. As the Times (UK) informed readers earlier this week: Abdulmutallab “is the fourth president of a London student Islamic society to face terrorist charges in three years. One is facing a retrial on charges that he was involved in the 2006 liquid bomb plot to blow up airliners. [emphasis added mine] Two others have been convicted of terrorist offences since 2007.”

Another of the speakers invited to give a presentation during “War on Terror Week” was Moazzam Begg himself. According to the Daily Mail (UK), “A poster advertising the week carried the name Umar Farook and includes events featuring former British Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg entitled Bring Our Boys Home.” The “Umar Farook” in question is the same student-turned-bomber who almost got away with mass murder on December 25. Copies of the poster (which also lists Qureshi as a speaker) can be found online.

Joscelyn’s report shows Abdulmutallab openly associated with a former Guantanamo detainee and headed a student organization that promoted violent jihad as far back at 2007. It is difficult to believe that the CIA would not open a file on Abdulmutallab back then from such open source material. And one wonders why the CIA did not routinely collect information on Abdulmutallab after Britain denied him a visa and placed him on their watch list in May 2009.