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| Plane plotter met Yemen cleric | Plane plotter met Yemen cleric |
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| A Nigerian accused of plotting to bomb a plane over Detroit met radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, senior Yemeni officials have confirmed. | A Nigerian accused of plotting to bomb a plane over Detroit met radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, senior Yemeni officials have confirmed. |
| Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi said the two men had met when the bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, visited Shabwa province. | |
| Last week US security official John Brennan said there were "indications" of direct contact between the two men. | |
| Mr Abdulmutallab was indicted by a US grand jury on six counts on Wednesday. | |
| Charges against him include attempted murder of the 290 people aboard the plane and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. | |
| Mr Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate a bomb on Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, but the plane landed safely after crew and passengers overpowered him. | |
| Mr Awlaki, a radical American Muslim cleric of Yemeni descent, has been linked to other attacks, including that carried out by a US army major who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood army base in Texas in November. | |
| Some reports say the cleric was killed just before the Christmas attack, in an airstrike on a suspected al-Qaeda base. | |
| However, friends and relatives say he was not harmed in the raid. |