Police: Mail bomb could have exploded over US
Forensic evidence shows device sent from Yemen could have been activated over eastern seaboard had it not been removed from cargo plane in UK
British police said a mail bomb intercepted last month at an English airport could have exploded over the East Coast of the United States.
Police said in a statement Wednesday that forensic evidence shows the device, originally sent from Yemen, could have been activated over the eastern seaboard had it not been removed from a cargo plane in the UK.
Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic said they only narrowly thwarted the plot. They say terrorists in Yemen hid two powerful bombs inside printers and shipped them to addresses in Chicago.
One bomb was intercepted at East Midlands Airport and the other was discovered at a cargo facility in Dubai.
Meanwhile, the FBI and Homeland Security said al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen was not behind the Sept. 3 crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai.
The terror group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for that crash last week along with taking the responsibility for the recent mail bomb plots.
The FBI and Homeland Security said they do believe the group is responsible for the mail bomb plot, but add that the group falsely took credit for the Dubai crash to bolster its image. This is according to an internal bulletin obtained by The Associated Press.
Crash investigators have found no evidence of an explosion on board the UPS cargo plane.
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