Today I visited the neighborhood in the Nigerian capital of Abuja where the family of Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has one of their three homes.

It looked something like an upscale neighborhood in the United States, with a couple of extra details: barbed wire on top of the walls, and a few chickens running around in the street.

By African standards, it’s absolutely luxurious, and forces you to wonder how and why Farook could have gotten caught up with extremists.

He was a good catch for Islamic radicals: young, willing to blow himself up, and above all, in possession of a visa for the United States.

His family has not given any interviews although they did release a statement saying that they thanked God there were no lives lost in the incident.

I did speak with a very close friend of Farouk, a fellow Muslim who has known him all his life. While she didn’t want to be identified, she did speak freely about how surprised she was, and how worried she is for the future.

“It’s very scary for us,” she said. “If this can happen in an educated, well-traveled person, what does it mean?”

I might have added “and extremely rich,” but in any case, it is very scary.