Security officials in Britain and Dubai intercepted two parcel bombs being sent from Yemen to the United States in a “credible terrorist threat,” US President Barack Obama said on Friday.
The parcels were bound for “two places of Jewish worship in Chicago,” Mr Obama said. The Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish organisation, earlier warned of a danger to US Jewish institutions from packages mailed from Britain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Suspicion fell on Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, which had taken responsibility for a failed plot to blow up a US passenger jet on Christmas Day in 2009.
The group, thought to include Yemenis and Saudis, is affiliated with Al Qaeda, whose militants killed about 3,000 people using hijacked planes in the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
“Initial examinations of those packages has determined that they do apparently contain explosive material,” Mr Obama said in a televised briefing, calling it “a credible terrorist threat against our country.”
The White House said “both of these packages originated from Yemen” and Mr Obama was notified of the threat on Thursday night.
Speaking just days before the US congressional elections on Tuesday, Mr Obama said a top aide had spoken to Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and that Mr Saleh had pledged full cooperation in the investigation.
One of the packages was found on a united parcel service cargo plane at East Midlands Airport, about 160 miles north of London.
The other was discovered at a FedEx Corp facility in Dubai. UPS and FedEx, the world’s largest cargo airline, said they were halting shipments from Yemen.
One US official and some analysts speculated that the parcels may have been a test of cargo screening procedures and the reaction of security officials.
“This may be a trial run,” the US official said.
The White House said Saudi Arabia helped determine that the threat came from Yemen, while Britain, the United Arab Emirates and “other friends and partners” also provided information. —Reuters