HONOLULU — President Barack Obama laid blame today on an al-Qaida affiliate for a Christmas Day terrorist plot that has led to a review of how intelligence agencies failed to prevent the botched bombing aboard a Detroit-bound airliner.

In his most direct public language to date, the president described the path through Yemen of 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to destroy Northwest Flight 253.

Obama's homeland security team has been piecing together just how Abdulmutallab was able to board the plane.

A senior administration official had said the United States was increasingly confident there was a link between Abdulmutallab and an al-Qaida affiliate, but Obama's statement is the strongest connection between the two.

"We're learning more about the suspect," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that the White House released today as the president vacationed in Hawaii.

"We know that he traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaida, and that this group — al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula — trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America," the president said.