Ok, so a friend tells you that someone tried to blow-up an airliner in flight on December 25.

Do you immediately assume that the person responsible is

A) A militant atheist involved in the War on Christmas

B) A former Soviet atheist still bitter over the fact that his country lost the Cold War

C) A gOd-hating Chinese Communist attempting to disrupt the Judeo-Christian capitalist economy

D) A troubled youth whose mind has been hopelessly warped by the books of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens

E) A religious fanatic from a religious family who was operating with the full support of others who share his love of gOd

If you answered A, B, C, or D – sorry, you assumed the wrong thing.

Gee, what are the odds?

Bomb Suspect From Elite Family, Schools (CBS News/The Associated Press; Dec 27)

Former Associates Describe Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as Being So Pious, He Was Called “The Pope”….

As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.

But the education he sought was of a different sort: Nigerian officials say his interest in extremist Islam prompted his father, the former CEO of one of Nigeria’s largest banks, to warn U.S. authorities. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he told U.S. officials that he had sought extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

A portrait emerged Sunday of a serious young man who led a privileged life as the son of a prominent banker, but became estranged from his family as an adult. Devoutly religious, he was nicknamed “The Pope” for his saintly aura and gave few clues in his youth that he would turn radical, friends and family said….

Abdulmutallab would seem to be the latest in a growing list of well educated, and well-to-do young men who have turned to radical Islam and then terrorism, reports CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar….

Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Northwest flight on Christmas Day with 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board. The detonator on his explosive apparently malfunctioned and he was subdued by other passengers.

Ken Wainstein, who became the first Assistant Attorney General for Homeland Security in 2006, told CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller that Abdulmutallab represents the kind of operative who could be “a goldmine” for al Qaeda.

Wainstein points out that Abdulmutallab speaks English, is Westernized, has multiple entry visa to the U.S. and can “fly under the radar.”…

His family home sits in the city of Funtua, in the heart of Nigeria’s Islamic culture. Religion figured into the family’s life: His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, who had a successful career in commercial banking, also joined the board of an Islamic bank – one that avoids the kind of interest payments banned by the Quran.

The large house, surrounded by a wall and a metal fence just off the main road running through the city, stood empty, a common occurrence for a jet-set family that sought an education abroad for Abdulmutallab….

The elder Mutallab was “a responsible and respected Nigerian, with a true Nigerian spirit,” she said. He had been estranged from his son for several months and alerted U.S. officials last month about the youth’s growing hard-line Islamic religious beliefs….

[Michael] Rimmer, a teacher at his high school in West Africa, said Abdulmutallab had been well-respected.

“At one stage, his nickname was ‘The Pope,”‘ Rimmer said from London in a telephone interview. “In one way it’s totally unsuitable because he’s Muslim, but he did have this saintly aura.”

But Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, Rimmer said.

In a discussion in 2001, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Rimmer said. At the time, Rimmer thought the boy was just playing the devil’s advocate.

He also noted that during a school trip to London, Abdulmutallab became upset when the teacher took students to a pub and said it wasn’t right to be in a place where alcohol was served.

Rimmer also remembered the youngster choosing to give 50 pounds to an orphanage rather than spend it on souvenirs in London….

Abdulmutallab went on to study engineering and business finance at the University College London, where he graduated last year, the college confirmed.

Students at his prestigious university in London, where Abdulmutallab lived in a smart white stone apartment block in an exclusive area of central London, said Abdulmutallab showed no signs of radicalization and painted him as a lax student with deep religious views.

“We worked on projects together,” Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering student at University College, told The Independent newspaper. “He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes. When we were studying, he always would go off to pray….”

Note that this article also discredits the assumption that the real motivation in cases like this is poverty rather than religious dogma and fervor.

To learn more about the many problems with that assumption, see the entry I posted on March 28, 2007.

To learn more about the all-too-real relationship between religion and violence, see the entries I posted on March 26, 2004; April 9, 2004; April 20, 2004; March 27, 2007; Oct 27, 2007; Feb 8, 2008; and Feb 20, 2009.