RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. We'll learn more this morning about the man accused of trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab prompted a widespread debate about American security and intelligence. And in a moment, we'll talk with Joe Liebermann, a senator leading that effort. First, we'll travel to the suspect's hometown. It's Kaduna in northern Nigeria, a region that's predominantly Muslim. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton traveled there.
Unidentified Children: (Singing in foreign language)
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON: It's in this Quranic school with its dusty yard, named after his paternal grandparents and funded by his father, that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab learned to recite verses from the Muslim holy book from a very early age, much like these youngsters.
Unidentified Children: (Singing in foreign language)
QUIST-ARCTON: It's late afternoon, and dozens of veiled girls and boys wearing Muslim caps are studying after school at the Rabiatu Mutallab Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. It's one of hundreds of such Quranic establishments here in Kaduna.
The bearded imam, Musa Umar Dumawa, has known Abdulmutallab since he was an infant. Dumawa condemned the alleged Christmas Day airline bomb plot by his former student.
Imam MUSA UMAR DUMAWA (Rabiatu Mutallab Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies): (Through translator) Yes, of course, I taught him. I was his spiritual teacher. I taught him when he was a very little child, and he was a very, very respectful boy, very, very obedient child. And I will keep on saying it, what this boy did, I believe he never got the ideas from here in Nigeria. It's very, very surprising what he's been associated with now.
QUIST-ARCTON: The imam last saw Abdulmutallab in Kaduna back in August.
Imam DUMAWA: (Through translator) Well, there's no way I could have known if there was anything disturbing him because he's a very, very reserved person. He doesn't socialize much. In fact, when he comes here, he prays. After the prayers, he says hello, hello to people and he walks away. That's why I cannot understand how he got himself into this mess.
(Soundbite of machine engine)
QUIST-ARCTON: I'm outside Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's house here in Kaduna. Not much activity here. The black gate has just opened. Somebody peeping out, but we're told that no family members are now staying in the house itself.
Mr. MICHAEL ADAH(ph): Farouk is a humble person. Since I know him, I've never in any way seen him behaving arrogantly - which shows the kind of humility in him.
QUIST-ARCTON: Michael Adah lives down the street from the Mutallabs. He's part of the same neighborhood youth association that Umar Farouk and his brothers nominally belong to. Adah says he's always found Abdulmutallab a gracious, unassuming and devout young man.
Mr. ADAH: Most of the people who are wealthy or even more educated, they don't show respects to all the lower-class people.
QUIST-ARCTON: Many here in Kaduna are asking how the son of a respected Muslim banker,, who was born to privilege and studied abroad, had come so badly unstuck. Abdulmutallab is now facing terrorism-related charges in the United States. Late last year, his father alerted U.S. and Nigerian security agencies about his son's increasingly radical views, and his decision to move to Yemen.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
QUIST-ARCTON: As children head home after another session learning the Quran, another longtime Mutallab neighbor and prominent human rights campaigner, Shehu Sani, says Nigerians must look for explanations right here in their own backyard in the Muslim-dominated north, where periodic religious violence has claimed hundreds of lives in the past decade.
Mr. SHEHU SANI (Human Rights Activist): The reality in Nigeria is that there is a rising spread of Islamic fundamentalism. But we don't have al-Qaida. We also do not have terrorist camps in Nigeria. But there is a reason to be concerned that the atmosphere is conducive for violent groups and individuals from the Middle East to have a foothold here.
QUIST-ARCTON: A reality, warns Shehu Sani, that his country must acknowledge and tackle.
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Kaduna, northern Nigeria.