Obama admits systemic failure over foiled terror attack, orders probe

PRESIDENT Barack Obama yesterday admitted that a systemic failure allowed terror attack suspect,Umar Mutallab, a known extremist to get onto the United States-bound plane last week with explosives.

Obama said he considered the intelligence and security failures to be "totally unacceptable".

The U.S. needed to learn from the incident and act quickly to fix flaws in the system, he said.

A 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged with attempting to blow up the plane as it came in to land was restrained by passengers.The suspect had allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his underwear. There were nearly 300 people aboard the plane.