LOC21:51
18:51 GMT
(With MIL-UK-BOMB series)
LONDON, Oct 30 (KUNA) -- UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the device in
a package sent from Yemen and found on a US-bound cargo plane was designed to
go off on the aircraft.
Cameron told reporters tonight British investigators could not yet be
certain about when the device, intercepted at East Midlands Airport, was
supposed to explode.
Police in Dubai, UAE, earlier confirmed that a second device, also on a
US-bound cargo plane, contained explosives.
Washington suspects the devices were part of a plot by an Al-Qaeda offshoot.
They were apparently both inserted in printer cartridges and placed in
packages addressed to synagogues in the Chicago area.
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) - an explosive favoured by the
Yemeni-based militant group, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - was
discovered in the Dubai device.
The packages were found on UPS and FedEx planes, triggering alerts in the
US, UK and Middle East.
The Yemeni authorities have closed down the local offices of the two US
companies, who have already suspended all shipments out of the country and
pledged full co-operation with investigators.
Security forces have also arrested a woman allegedly involved in sending
the parcels, after surrounding a house in Sanaa. US President Barack Obama
discussed the apparent terrorist plot with Cameron by phone today, expressing
his "appreciation for the professionalism of American and British services
involved" in disrupting it, the White House said.
Cameron said tonight the authorities had immediately banned packages coming
to or through the UK from Yemen, and would be "looking extremely carefully at
any further steps we have to take".
"In the end, these terrorists think that our connectedness, our openness,
as modern countries is what makes us weak. They're wrong. It's a source of our
strength and we will use that strength, that determination and that power to
defeat them," he added.
UK Home Secretary Theresa May earlier confirmed that device was viable and
could have brought an aircraft down.
"We do not believe that the perpetrators of the attack would have known the
location of the device when it was planned to explode," she added.
While details of the device found in Britain were not released, photographs
emerged on the US media of an ink toner cartridge covered in white powder and
connected to a circuit board, which was said to have been found at East
Midlands Airport.
The British government's remarks suggest the authorities in both the UK and
the US remain uncertain about the precise targets and, indeed, aim of this
latest apparent plot, commentators said. (end)
he.bs
KUNA 302151 Oct 10NNNN