One of the two bombs posted from Yemen last week was
transported on two passenger planes before being seized in Dubai, Qatar Airways
says.
The device was carried on a Qatar Airbus A320 from
Yemen’s capital Sanaa to Doha, the company told the BBC.
There it was transferred onto another Qatar Airways
aircraft to Dubai, where it was seized by police.
The bomb contained the explosive, PETN, which is
difficult to detect using normal airport security screening.
A second device was found at East Midlands Airport in the
UK. Both bombs were hidden inside printer toner cartridges.
Until now it had been thought that both devices had been
transported using cargo planes.
The US freight firms, UPS and FedEx, had been used to
post the devices, which were addressed to synagogues in the US city of Chicago.
The British authorities says the bomb seized in central
England was believed to have been designed to go off in mid-air.
Qatar Airways was unable to confirm which type of
passenger plane was used to fly the device on from Doha to Dubai, but said it
would have been an A320, A321 or Boeing 777. The firm also runs one
freight-only flight a week from Sanaa to Doha.
“Qatar Airways can confirm that a recent courier
consignment was carried aboard one of its aircraft from Sanaa to Dubai, via
Doha International Airport,” said a statement on
the airline’s website.
“The carrier stated that, as per Chicago Convention,
it is not the responsibility of the country in which the cargo transits to
x-ray or inspect the cargo. This responsibility belongs to the country from
where the consignment originates.
“Furthermore, the explosives discovered were of a
sophisticated nature whereby they could not be detected by x-ray screening or
trained sniffer dogs. The explosives were only discovered after an intelligence
tip off.”
US officials have said the Saudi-born bomb-maker, Ibrahim
Hassan al-Asiri, is the prime suspect for constructing the devices.
Most of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s more
dangerous operatives are Saudis, driven out of their own country by a highly
effective counter-terrorism campaign that has not yet been matched in Yemen.
Some were released from Saudi rehabilitation centres for
good behaviour and some have even spent time as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, an
experience that has redoubled their hatred of America and the West.
Today, attention is focussing on an alleged Saudi
bombmaker, Ibrahim Al-Asiri, believed to be the man who built last week’s
parcel bombs.
He’s also thought to have designed the device worn by the
failed Detroit bomber last Christmas.
And in August last year he sent his own brother back over
the border to try to assassinate a leading Saudi prince. The device he was
carrying detonated, killing the would-be assassin, but the prince survived to
continue his job as Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism chief.
He is believed to be one of the leading figures in
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a regional offshoot of the militant
network, and the organiser of a suicide attack by his brother last year on the
Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Mohammed Bin Nayif. The prince survived the
attack, in which PETN was also used.
The US top anti-terrorism official, John Brennan, said
officials also believed the same person had constructed the printer bombs and
the underpants bomb used in the failed attempt to blow up an airliner over the
US on Christmas Day last year. AQAP said it was behind the latter.
“I think that the indications are right now based on
forensic analysis that the individual responsible for putting these devices
together is the same,” he told ABC News.
“He’s a very dangerous individual – clearly somebody
who has a fair amount of training and experience. We need to find him and bring
him to justice as soon as we can.”
He also said the US and its allies could not assume that
there were no other packages out there.
“So what we are trying to do right no is to work
with our partners overseas to identify all packages that left Yemen recently,
and to see whether or not there are any other suspicious packages out there
that may contain these [Improvised Explosive Devices].”
“We need to make sure that we get to the bottom of
this, and understand who is behind it and what else we may be facing.”
US officials were re-examining the unexplained crash of a
UPS cargo plane in Dubai in September to see if anything could be learnt, he
added.
However, the UAE later said investigators from its civil
aviation authority had concluded that there was no “presence of acoustic
evidence or any forensic signature supporting the detonation of an explosive
device”.
The Yemeni authorities are questioning a student who is
alleged to have posted the devices, and whose mobile phone number was
reportedly left with the offices.
She has been named by human rights groups as Hanan
al-Samawi, 22.
The authorities initially described her as a medical
student, but later reports said she was studying computer engineering at the
University of Sanaa and had no known links to Islamist militants.
“Her acquaintances tell me that she is a quiet
student and there was no knowledge of her having involvement in any religious
or political groups,” her lawyer, Abdel Rahman Burman, told the Reuters
news agency.
“I’m concerned the girl is a victim because it
doesn’t make sense that the person who would do this kind of operation would
leave a picture of their ID and their phone number.”
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