Planes swept in US, UK for potential bombs
A suspected bomb was found on Friday in Britain on board a cargo plane headed to the United States, where authorities were investigating other cargo flights for "potentially suspicious items" in New York, Philadelphia and other cities.
The plane, a United Parcel Service flight that stopped in Britain while traveling to Chicago from Yemen, was carrying an ink toner cartridge converted into a bomb, CNN reported.
An FBI source told Reuters that initial tests in Britain revealed no explosives.
British police said the plane carrying the suspicious package was being checked at a distribution center at East Midlands Airport, some 160 miles (260 km) north of London.
Cargo planes checked
The United States has stepped up its training, intelligence and military aid to Yemen after a failed plot to blow up a U.S. passenger plane on Christmas Day 2009, for which the Yemeni wing of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
UPS said two of its other planes were being checked in Philadelphia, as well as another that landed in Newark, New Jersey. Local media reported cargo planes also had been stopped for investigation in Portland, Maine, and at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
"Out of an abundance of caution the planes were moved to a remote location where they are being met by law enforcement officials and swept," the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said.
A UPS spokeswoman said she did not know where the flights had originated. CNN said the UPS plane in Newark had arrived from East Midlands and said flights to the United States from Yemen were being investigated as a precaution.
UPS could not confirm reports of investigations in Maine or at JFK airport in New York.
Also, a UPS truck in New York City was checked for a suspicious package and then cleared, police said.
New York police spokesman Paul Browne declined to comment on whether there were links with the investigations at Philadelphia and Newark airports.
U.S. media reports suggested that at least one of the cargo planes being swept in the United States had also passed through East Midlands Airport.
Growing intelligence concerns
Fran Townsend, who was homeland security advisor to president George W. Bush, told CNN the security scare followed growing intelligence concerns about a possible attack by al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate.
"There had been a rising concern about packages and cargo being used to launch an attack," she said.
"The U.S. intelligence community has been focused on that. You add to that in the last 24 hours a tip from a very credible U.S. ally who provided some, I’m told, very specific information about packages coming out of Yemen."
Townsend said a plane had been grounded in Dubai in addition to the one in Britain and that the concern was over cargo planes containing packages from Yemen.
"They’ll look at every single carrier who potentially either took packages out of Yemen or picked them up en route in a second country on their way here from Yemen."
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, faces a growing threat from the local branch of his global jihadist network.
Over the past decade, it has become a haven for violent extremists, becoming the headquarters of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the hiding place for U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, who was linked to high-profile terror plots in the United States.
The accused Christmas Day bomber, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has told U.S. investigators he received the explosive device and training from al-Qaeda militants in Yemen.
Yemen has been trying to quell a resurgent branch of al-Qaeda, which has stepped up attacks on Western and government targets in the Arabian Peninsula country.