The cargo plane bomb plot

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Yemen bomb suspect released, says lawyer

Sana, Yemen, October 31, 2010 — Yemen authorities on Sunday released a 23-year-old engineering student who had been arrested a day earlier for her alleged connection to Al Qaeda and the foiled plot to mail packages of concealed explosives into the U.S., according to her lawyer. The Yemen government did not issue a statement on why Hanan Samawi, who was detained Saturday after her cellphone number was traced to shipping orders, was freed. The student's release could be a political embarrassment for President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had announced her arrest in a high-profile news conference apparently designed to show that his government was moving aggressively against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Samawi's lawyer, Abdulraham Barman, said he was told by Samawi's father Sunday evening that she was no longer in custody. Barman did not elaborate.

A Yemen official in Washington, who asked not to be named, said authorities released Samawi on conditional bail and believed it was a case of stolen identity. The official said "they brought in several people from the shipping company where the package was dropped off. They had them look at the woman and see if they could identify her. All of them said it was not her." The official added that the woman who did drop off the package "used a passport and an ID that had the full name of Hanan Samawi, and her address and phone number.... We believe it was someone who knew Hanan Samawi or somehow their paths crossed."

Hours before the young woman's release, her classmates at Sana University College of Engineering protested against the treatment she received from police in her neighborhood in north Sana, the Yemen capital. Students were angry that police had surrounded her house and drove away with her and her mother, a scene many Yemeni found culturally reprehensible. They protested under the sign: "Is this how you treat women in Yemen?"

In a country woven with deception and conspiracy, the president's involvement in the case suggested the increasing pressure Saleh faces inside and outside of Yemen. Was he taking charge to keep Washington from pressing him for increased U.S. military intervention, or was it a sign that after years of keeping the Americans at bay he was signaling closer cooperation with the Obama administration? "I think it's an orchestration to draw more attention to Yemen," Barman, a human-rights lawyer, said earlier in the day. "The U.S. wants to be more active here and this plot is a fabrication to justify coming military strikes against Al Qaeda."

Others viewed the president's quick action as a pointed message to Washington: "We'll deal with it to your liking, but just keep out of our hair. The president has the support of the Yemeni people to handle our own affairs," said Abdul-Ghani Iryani, a political analyst. "The military option will not work in dealing with a small group of bandits. You need police work, not bombs and missiles." While pundits and columnists parsed the global politics of terrorism, Yemeni investigators hunted for suspects and details in a plot that spanned several countries. Security forces were trying to determine how two packages containing explosives and bound for Jewish centers in Chicago slipped through detectors at the Yemen airport and wound up on planes in Britain and the United Arab Emirates. Al Qaeda has not claimed responsibility for the plot, but intelligence officials say it bears the earmarks of Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, the group chief's bomb maker. The explosive in the packages was PETN, which was also used in a suicide bombing carried out by Asiri's brother in 2009 in a failed attempt to assassinate Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency.

Few on the Sana University campus believed that Samawi, a liberal thinker and the daughter of a water engineer, was connected to a terrorist network, even though a copy of her identification card also appeared on shipping papers. Her female classmates, most of whom wore veils covering their faces, described Samawi as an apolitical conscientious computer engineering student awaiting graduation in July. "Hanan wouldn't do anything like this," said a student who gave only her first name, Sumiya. "She's only interested in computer engineering. She's one of our best students, a normal girl. She listens to Western music. She likes Yanni."

The government is "scared of Washington and will do anything to please it," said Hakim Almasmari, publisher and editor of the Yemen Post. Such sentiments among Yemeni point to a growing frustration with Washington's influence and their own government's inability, despite military attacks on Al Qaeda, to significantly weaken the group. Many feel the country is adrift in a costly and dangerous battle against terror while not solving issues, such as poverty, corruption and a failing education system, that have allowed militants to gain a foothold.

News clips tend to stay the same. Soldiers and heavy artillery move into mountainous regions, airstrikes rattle ravines and Al Qaeda fighters slip away, disappearing into tribal lands and safe houses. Increased cooperation between the U.S. and Yemen has resulted in some military successes, but, analysts say, a new generation of militants is waiting. "Right now there's no indication whatsoever that Al Qaeda is losing ground," said Iryani. "As tanks roll into an area, new buds of terrorists bloom. We've been going about it completely wrong."

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Al-Qaida bombs too sophisticated for x-rays, say officials

October 31, 2010 -- Senior counter-terrorism officials warned that al-Qaida has exposed a blind spot in international aviation security by successfully smuggling bombs onto commercial cargo planes bound for the U.S. One official told the Guardian that the bomb inside a computer printer discovered at East Midlands airport on Friday, en route from Yemen to Chicago, was "one of the most sophisticated we've seen … The naked eye won't pick it up, experienced bomb officers did not see it, x-ray screening is highly unlikely to catch it."

Saudi Arabian intelligence was tipped off by an informant leading to the discovery of the devices at East Midlands airport and Dubai airport. A special team of officers from MI5, MI6, and GCHQ, which works closely with the Metropolitan police's counter-terrorism branch, was activated as soon as the Saudi Arabian authorities tipped off U.S. and UK intelligence agencies.

The home secretary, Theresa May, said the devices could have exploded over the UK or the U.S. as it emerged that the bomb found in the UK was first missed by investigators and was only picked up during a second check. "The package was examined and declared safe," said a Metropolitan police spokesman. "It was subsequently re-examined as a precaution."

In a further development which added to concern over the ease with which the explosive material used in the devices – Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN – can be passed through all kinds of airport security, Qatar Airways said the bomb found in Dubai had travelled on two separate passenger aircraft without being picked up. The airline said the devices could not be picked up by x-ray screening or sniffer dogs. "There is no way of picking out PETN," said the British counter-terrorism official. "It is a continued vulnerability." The bombs were "sophisticated and very well-disguised", another well-placed official said. The same explosive was used in the device smuggled aboard a flight to the U.S. on Christmas Day last year, the so-called underpants bomb which only partially ignited.

May announced a review of air cargo security despite aviation industry calls for restraint because of fears that tougher rules could have a major economic impact. "We will be talking to the industry about those measures," she said. "We are well aware of the economic aspects of freight travel." She said the discovery of the explosive devices, thought to have been planted by al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, strengthened the argument that tough security measures for passenger air travel should stay in place despite calls last week for them to be scaled back. BA's chairman, Martin Broughton, called many of the checks "completely redundant" and demanded a rethink.

This weekend the Department for Transport ordered UK airport owners to review every aspect of their cargo security and to ensure "everybody involved is doing what they should be doing". Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of the government's anti-terrorism legislation, said the initial failure to spot the bomb at East Midlands airport represented a weakness in what had otherwise been a successful operation. "We must have a look at the technology to ensure that it's absolutely up to date," he said. "This is all about trying to keep one step ahead of terrorists." Carlile said air cargo routes have been a vulnerable part of the international infrastructure for some years, citing his visit three years ago to DHL, one of the world's largest parcel carriers which operates at East Midlands airport, when management expressed concern at the security risk posed to its operations. He said the company handled 10,000 packages a day to the U.S. alone and it was impossible to scan them all.

There was uncertainty about the bombers' precise intent. British counter-terrorism officials initially believed the plot was either a dry run or, more likely, simply an attempt to provoke panic. These assumptions were shattered when scientists at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent on Saturday concluded that the device was what ministers described as "professionally built".

May, who chaired the government's Cobra emergency response meeting on Saturday said it became clear "overnight Friday and into Saturday was that it was indeed a viable device and could have exploded". But she said the terrorists' use of freight planes made it uncertain where that might have happened. "As I understand it, with these freight flights sometimes the routing can change at the last moment so it is difficult for those who are planning the detonation to know exactly where – if it is detonated to a time, for example – exactly where the aircraft will be," she said.

Tory MP Patrick Mercer, a former shadow minister of homeland security, said the plot seemed to be more intended for public relations effect than to guarantee fatalities, and the failure of the bombs to explode on the planes suggested they emerged from "a kitchen sink operation". The bombs were addressed to Chicago synagogues, which also cast doubt on whether the perpetrators wanted the devices to detonate aboard the planes or at their destination. Mark Gardner, of the Community Safety Trust, said Britain's Jewish communities were already on heightened alert and urged them to take even more stringent measures to protect against the possibility of attack. Mercer said he thought the terrorists' best hope for creating chaos would have been for the planes to explode in mid-air above Chicago airport but he claimed they were likely to have considered the chances of such an outcome as remote.

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