Yemen arrests suspect as parcels confirmed as bombs

[Guest guest]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/101030/n_top_news/cnews_us_usa_yemen_plane

Yemen arrests suspect as parcels confirmed as bombs

2 hours, 15 minutes ago

By Mohamed Sudam

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni forces on Saturday arrested a woman believed to be

involved in sending explosive packages bound for the United States that

triggered a global security alert, Yemeni security officials said.

The arrest was the first in the case, in which two air freight packages

containing bombs -- both sent from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago

-- were intercepted in Britain and Dubai.

The officials said the woman had been traced through a telephone number she had

left with a cargo company.

They told Reuters she was a medical student at Sanaa University and believed to

be in her 20s. She was arrested in a poor neighborhood in the west of the Yemeni

capital Sanaa.

The women's lawyer said her mother had also been detained, but was not a prime

suspect.

Britain said the device found on a cargo plane at its East Midlands airport was

big enough to down an aircraft.

" We believe the device was designed to go off on the aeroplane. We cannot be

sure about the timing when that was meant to take place, " Prime Minister

Cameron told reporters at Chequers, his country residence outside London.

" In the end these terrorists think that our interconnectedness, our openness as

modern countries is what makes us weak, " he said. " They are wrong -- it is a

source of our strength, and we will use that strength, that determination, that

power and that solidarity to defeat them. "

HALLMARKS OF AL QAEDA

Dubai had said on Friday that it had found a viable bomb.

Officials say the bombs bear the hallmarks of al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, al Qaeda

in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). At least one bomb included PETN, the explosive

used in a failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day last year.

The White House said Saudi Arabia had helped to identify the threat, and

President Barack Obama thanked Saudi King Abdullah for the " critical role " his

country had played.

Saudi Arabia has come under huge international pressure to take on al Qaeda

since it was found to be the home of most of the attackers who struck the United

States on September 11, 2001, killing 3,000 people.

The United States has focused increasingly on Yemen since last year's failed

Christmas Day bombing, which AQAP claimed.

An official in Washington called Saturday's arrest " a demonstration that Yemen

is taking this seriously and cooperation is strong and ongoing. "

There was a heavy police presence on the streets of Sanaa on Saturday night,

with checkpoints throughout the city and on the road to the airport, as police

hunted accomplices.

The White House said Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, Brennan, had told

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh that Washington " stands ready " to aid his

government.

Saleh said his country was " determined to continue fighting terrorism and al

Qaeda in cooperation with its partners, " but warned Washington against taking

matters into its own hands.

" We do not want anyone to interfere in Yemeni affairs by hunting down al Qaeda, "

he said in a brief appearance before journalists, who were not given an

opportunity to ask questions.

Saleh said Yemen would like better intelligence cooperation with the U.S.,

British and Saudi governments.

DRONE ATTACKS

U.S. drone aircraft are widely believed to be behind strikes against al Qaeda

targets in Yemen, much as they are in Pakistan, although Washington does not

acknowledge them. Yemeni officials worry an overt U.S. military presence could

attract a backlash.

U.S. officials say Obama has given the CIA the green light to hunt and kill al

Qaeda figures believed to be in Yemen, such as U.S.-born AQAP propaganda chief

Anwar al-Awlaki.

In Washington, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said

authorities were checking whether other packages had been sent before the two

that were intercepted.

" We're doing some reverse engineering, as it were, to identify other packages

from Yemen, " she said on NBC News.

The Yemeni suspect's lawyer, Abdel Rahman Burman, said he feared she had been

unwittingly used by others.

" 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, " he

told Reuters.

" 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. "

One of the packages was found on a United Parcel Service cargo plane at East

Midlands Airport, north of London. The other bomb was discovered hidden in a

computer printer cartridge in a parcel at a FedEx Corp facility in Dubai.

That package was brought in on a Qatar Airways plane that stopped over in the

Qatari capital Doha, the airline confirmed.

UPS and FedEx, the world's largest cargo airline, halted shipments from Yemen.

On Saturday, Yemen shut down both companies' operations there, citing security

concerns.

Britain halted all air freight from Yemen.

(Additional reporting by Croft, Stefano Ambrogi and Mohammed Abbas in

London; Pelofsky and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Raissa Kasolowsky,

Mahmoud Habboush, Amran Abocar, and Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa and

Dubai; Writing and editing by Graff and Liffey)