Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called "Underwear Bomber," admitted to multiple people that he had tried to blow up the Detroit-bound plane on which he was a passenger on Christmas Day, 2009, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

After passengers noticed that Abdulmutallab's pants were on fire as he tried to ignite the explosive device concealed in his underwear, a flurry of admittances of guilt tumbled from his lips, prosecutors said.

“He wanted jihad, he sought it out and he found it,” assistant United States attorney Jonathan Tukel said about Abdulmutallab in a Detroit courtroom during opening statements, according to the New York Times.

Abdulmutallab told fellow passengers, at least two federal agents, and a paramedic about his militant plans.

He even told a federal agent in Detroit outright that “I’m with Al Qaeda,” the prosecutor told jurors, according to the NYTimes.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 24-year-old Nigerian man, faces charges of attempting to detonate an explosive device on an airplane in a trial that is expected to last a month, according to Reuters.

Abdulmutallab is representing himself in the trial, and did not give opening statements.

Some Congressional Republicans are opposed to Abdulmutallab recieving a civilian trial instead of facing a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Abdulmutallab is a war criminal, not a civilian," Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said last week, according to the Los Angeles Times. "It is wrong to provide him with the rights and privileges afforded in a civilian trial."

Abdulmutallab was eventually overpowered by fellow passengers on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009.

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