Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in a short news conference Saturday that Yemeni forces acted on a tip from U.S. officials, who had passed along a telephone trace.
The two bomb packages, addressed to Jewish organizations in Chicago, were intercepted Friday in airports in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and East Midlands, England, after a detailed tip from Saudi intelligence that included package tracking numbers, U.S. officials say. The Dubai package was sent via FedEx, and the package to England went via UPS. Initial reports had said that both were UPS parcels and that both had been found late Thursday.
A search of 15 other suspicious packages from Yemen turned up no bombs, a U.S. law enforcement source said.
U.S. officials are still trying to piece together the intent of the plot, which they suspect was carried out by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist network's affiliate in Yemen.
It's unclear how the Saudis were clued in, but this month a leader of the Al Qaeda branch in Yemen, Jabir Jubran Fayfi, turned himself in to the Saudi government. Picked up by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2001, he had been held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before being turned over to Saudi Arabia. He went through a rehabilitation program for militants and was released, only to rejoin Al Qaeda in 2006.
But Fayfi contacted Saudi authorities from Yemen to express his regret and readiness to surrender, the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement Oct 15.
On Saturday, authorities were investigating whether the plot sought to blow up the cargo planes in midair or upon landing — or whether the bombs were intended for the Chicago addresses on the packages.
British Home Secretary Theresa May said Saturday in London that the target of the bomb found in her country may have been an aircraft, though "we do not believe that the perpetrators of the attack would have known the location of the device when it was planned to explode."
As President Obama campaigned this weekend, he kept tabs on the investigation. He discussed the plot in phone calls Saturday with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Saudi King Abdullah.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), after briefings from Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said in an interview that the bombs were fashioned out of the chemical explosive PETN, the substance used in the attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
"But this was 10 times bigger," said a federal law enforcement official, who said the packages contained "about a pound each" of PETN.
"The fact that PETN was used in this plot is worrisome," said a U.S. intelligence official not authorized to speak for attribution. "PETN is hard to detect and lends itself to being concealed. It is not hard to make, but it takes some sophistication to conceal the explosives in the right way. It packs a punch. You don't need that much of it to blow a hole in an aircraft."
U.S. officials have said that the Christmas Day bomb was built by Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, who also reportedly built a PETN device in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the top Saudi counter-terrorism official last year.
One of the bombs found Friday was wired for remote detonation via cellphone, Harman said, and the other was linked to a timer but lacked a triggering device. The remote detonation setup "leads me to speculate that … people had [detonators] on the ground somewhere in Chicago," she said.
At least one of the addresses in Chicago was for a church that had been used at one time by a Jewish congregation, but not for seven years. The bomb discovered in Dubai was wired to a SIM card, a portable memory chip typically used in mobile phones, said Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who serves on the intelligence and homeland security committees.
"The bombs were made to look like ink cartridges — like for a big Xerox machine," he said.
Napolitano, interviewed on several television shows Saturday, would not say whether the bombs would have been detected by current screening procedures without the information from Saudi intelligence. Most cargo bound for the U.S. is screened by foreign governments, and 38% is not screened at all, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
The foiled attack is putting renewed scrutiny on Yemen, a nearly failed state that officials said has become an increasing hotbed of terrorist planning.
"Outside of the Afghan-Pakistan area where the Al Qaeda core and the senior leadership reside, I would say that the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the most active operational franchise right now of Al Qaeda, and that this is one that deserves a lot of our attention," White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan said Friday.
Stratfor, a Texas-based private intelligence firm, said in an e-mail Saturday that even though the plot did not inflict physical damage, it "severely disrupted the operations of two U.S.-based multibillion-dollar shipping corporations, preoccupied U.S., Saudi, Emirati and British security and intelligence officials and effectively sowed terror across much of the West."
Sandra Munoz, a spokeswoman for FedEx, disputed that. "Our operations were normal," she said, other than the suspension of package delivery from Yemen.
U.S. law enforcement officials said they were increasingly intrigued by another Yemeni figure released to the Saudis in 2006, Uthman Ghamdi, also a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay.
Ghamdi reportedly has surfaced as a right-hand man to Anwar Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric thought to be living in Yemen. Both men are considered top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Ghamdi recently wrote a memoir for Inspire magazine, an Al Qaeda online quarterly, in which he describes being flown to Guantanamo aboard a cargo plane, a link that officials said could give him a reason to want to strike at cargo aircraft.
He wrote that he was flown "for a long journey" to Guantanamo Bay in 2002. "We were not allowed to speak or move and we were prevented from seeing or hearing anything," he wrote.
Ghamdi, who had been captured in Pakistan, was released from Guantanamo in 2006 and repatriated to Saudi Arabia. But like some of the other released captives, he soon took up the fight again.
In 2009, the Saudi government listed him among their 85 "most wanted" terrorism suspects. Ten other former captives also made the list. Ghamdi reportedly soon left Saudi Arabia for Yemen.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cargo-planes-20101031,0,7280444,print.story
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Yemeni security forces are seen outside a FedEx branch in Sana. Yemen launched a probe
after explosives were found in air parcels sent to U.S. synagogues from its territory by
suspected Al Qaeda militants whom it is under renewed pressure to eliminate. |
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A fractured Yemen frustrates US efforts to weaken Al Qaeda there
The country's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, needs foreign support to defeat militants, but competing clans, rebellions and corruption make it difficult to satisfy Western interests.
by Jeffrey Fleishman
Los Angeles Times
October 31, 2010
Reporting from Cairo
U.S. efforts to weaken the Al Qaeda branch in Yemen have collided with that nation's political reality as President Ali Abdullah Saleh needs foreign support to defeat militants but cannot appear to appease Western interests in a country where distrust of America runs deep.
Yemen is a freewheeling mix of clan loyalties, rebellions in the north and south and suspicion of the government that in recent years has made it an ideal gathering ground for Al Qaeda. |
Echoing the quandary Washington faces battling militants in Pakistan, Yemen is marked by corruption and, at times, what seems to be a calculated inability to crush militant elements.
The Obama administration has intensified pressure on Saleh, and Friday's foiled terrorist plot may lead to increased U.S. military involvement in Yemen. The U.S. has not commented on reports in December that it carried out airstrikes in Yemen that killed as many as 10 militants and at least 40 civilians.
Washington is also seeking to assassinate Anwar Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who has emerged as a leader in the militant group, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. U.S. investigators believe the preacher inspired Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to go on a shooting rampage last year at Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 32.
Islamic militants, many of whom could seek refuge in their tribes, were tolerated inside Yemen for years as long as they aimed their attacks on other countries, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Western intelligence officials have gradually convinced Saleh that Al Qaeda's intentions also include targeting him and his family.
The Yemeni government has stepped up military actions against Al Qaeda, which is believed to have several hundred fighters, mostly Yemeni and Saudi nationals. How effective those operations have been remains an open question. The Yemeni news agency reported over the weekend that a raid involving 1,000 troops and 500 tribesmen loyal to the government ended when no militants were found in Shabwa province, a haven for militants in the southern part of the country.
Saleh, who once likened ruling Yemen to dancing on the heads of snakes, has other pressing concerns: A rebellion by Houthi tribesmen in the north, which sparked widespread destruction and tens of thousands of refugees, sporadically flares. And in the south, the government is trying to contain a secessionist movement that many analysts say is more dangerous to Saleh than Al Qaeda.
The key to Saleh's success over nearly three decades in power has been his manipulating of tribes with promises, money and infrastructure projects. But largess is getting tight and there is disenchantment in the outlands, most notably after strikes against Al Qaeda also have mistakenly killed tribesmen and their families.
Saleh's critics contend that the president benefits from Al Qaeda and other threats. The air of instability, especially at a time of concern over international terrorism, has brought outside support for the government and brought foreign dollars into the country to pay for humanitarian and military operations.
Yemen's biggest donor is Saudi Arabia, which has tightened its border to prevent militants from sneaking in and launching attacks, such as a 2009 suicide bombing that nearly killed a prince. The U.S. is expected to significantly increase aid in coming years as attention to Yemen grows similar to what it was immediately after the attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole that killed 17 sailors in 2000.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-yemen-al-qaeda-20101031,0,2115597.story
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US steps up screening as debate flares about cargo security
Without a tip from Saudi Arabia, two bombs might not have been detected.
by Brian Bennett, Tribune Washington Bureau
October 31, 2010
Reporting from Washington
U.S. officials dramatically increased the screening of incoming air cargo after the interception Friday of two explosive devices believed to have originated in Yemen, as a renewed debate emerged over how many resources federal officials and private companies should devote to such screening.
The packages from Yemen contained chemical explosives camouflaged as printer cartridges and wired to be detonated by a cellphone. They were found in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and England only after the U.S. received a tip from Saudi Arabia.
"Without this intelligence, it is likely they would have slipped through the security measures we have in place," said U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R- Texas), a Homeland Security committee member who was briefed on the plot.
He said the bombs "have exposed a weakness in the way that cargo is screened on its way to the U.S." and that terrorists have identified that vulnerability. "This opens everybody's eyes up," McCaul said.
The U.S. checks incoming foreign parcels using a network of government-certified private screeners and companies as well as its own inspectors at about 18 gateway airports around the country, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
As of August, about 38% of cargo coming into the U.S. was not being screened, according to the TSA.
The bomb plot is likely to spark a call in Congress to push for 100% screening, McCaul predicted Saturday. One challenge, he added, will be how "to balance security and commerce on this matter."
The sheer numbers of packages flowing through the $100-billion global air freight industry is daunting. UPS, which was the courier for one of the explosive packages and had three planes inspected at U.S. airports on Friday, ships 15 million parcels a day worldwide. FedEx, which was transporting the other package, ships about 8 million.
"We have to find that balance" between security and a timely operation, said UPS spokeswoman Karen Cole. "We have a lot of security checkpoints and systems to make sure that network is secure."
Shipment data are transmitted to the Department of Homeland Security at least four hours before any cargo plane lands on U.S. soil. Department officials then analyze the data about the packages' origins and destinations to identify "high risk" cargo to be inspected.
In addition, all inbound packages weighing more than 150 pounds are searched, and smaller packages could be inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs while in transit, according to U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), chairwoman of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee.
Citing security concerns, TSA officials declined to describe the inspection methods. The minimum inspection criteria have been temporarily elevated, officials said.
In June, TSA Assistant Administrator John Sammon told Congress that the agency had a goal of screening 100% of incoming international cargo by 2013.
The TSA has said that effort will be limited by existing technology's inability to quickly and accurately screen packages as well as the difficulty of relying on screening programs run by foreign governments.
In recent years, the TSA has increased domestic screening programs.
As of August, TSA or certified screeners have been checking all cargo on domestic passenger planes and on international passenger flights to the U.S. that are labeled "high-risk." The TSA has certified more than 1,200 cargo screening facilities in the U.S.
The mail bomb threat prompted the Department of Homeland Security to roll out additional safety measures at passenger airports. An "unpredictable mix" of security layers for passengers was implemented, the TSA announced, including explosives detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs and additional pat-downs.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cargo-inspections-20101031,0,3299916,print.story
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