Secret no-fly list grows to 21,000

Failed 2009 Christmas bombing prompted new look at criteria for list.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has more than doubled, to about 21,000 names, its secret list of suspected terrorists who are banned from flying to or within the United States, including about 500 Americans, the Associated Press has learned.

The size of the government’s secret no-fly list has jumped from about 10,000 in the past year, according to government figures.

The surge comes as the U.S. says it’s close to defeating al-qaida after killing many of its senior members. But senior officials said the threat does not stop there.

“As long as we sustain the pressure on it, we judge that core alQaida will be of largely symbolic importance to the global jihadist movement,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress on Thursday. “But regional affiliates and, to a lesser extent, small cells and individuals will drive the global jihad agenda.”

Those are the people added to the no-fly list, current and former counterterrorism officials said. Most are from other countries; about 500 are Americans.

“Both U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities and foreign services continue to identify people who want to cause us harm, particularly in the U.S. and particularly as it relates to aviation,” Transportation Security Administrator John Pistole said in an interview.

Affiliated terror groups in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Algeria and elsewhere, as well as individuals who ascribe to al-qaida’s beliefs — “All are in the mix,” said Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “And no one is claiming that they are shrinking.”

The flood of new names began after the failed Christmas 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound jetliner. The government lowered the standard for putting people on the list then scoured its files for anyone who qualified.

Among the most significant new standards is that now a person doesn’t have to be considered only a threat to aviation to be placed on the no-fly list.

People who are considered a broader threat to domestic or international security or who attended a terror training camp also are included, said a U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Christmas attack led to other changes in how the U.S. assembles its watch list. Intelligence agencies reviewed old files to find people who should have been on the terror watch list all along, plus those who should be added because of the new standards put in place to close gaps.

The Nigerian man who pleaded guilty in the Christmas 2009 attack over Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was listed in a large U.S. database that includes partial names and relatives of suspected terrorists. That database is a feeder to the broad terror watch list, of which the no-fly list is a part, but only when there is enough information linking the person to terrorism. Officials believe the U.S. had enough information about Abdulmutallab at the time to put him on the broader terror watch list, which could have led to his arrest.