Support the troops?

[deep]

nobody order it

the location / address does not even exist.

 

[The_Pac_Mule]

as if a rabbi isn't going to look at the shipment details when it arrives at the synagogue.

oh look, toner sent from yemen that nobody ordered! yeah, that's not going to arouse their suspicion.

I doubt they even intended it to get to that point. The bomb had the power to take down the plane it was on

 

[A stor]

nobody order it

the location / address does not even exist.

Exactly, soft targets. It was a trial run. Just as Pac mule has stated. In his above post.

 

[The_Pac_Mule]

Exactly, soft targets. It was a trial run.

Shit's gonna hit the fan soon.

 

[yolland]

These bombs were designed to be detonated remotely, via SIM cards attached to their circuitries, so in the event that they had reached their addressees, it wouldn't matter whether anyone opened them, only that they'd been signed for by whichever staffer opened the door. When you use UPS or FedEx to ship packages, like these bombers did, you can know where your package is moment-to-moment by entering its tracking number into their website. Wouldn't surprise me if the shipping companies now change that, though...

 

[coolian2]

I doubt they even intended it to get to that point. The bomb had the power to take down the plane it was on

what's blowing up a cargo plane going to achieve, really?



if i were a terrorist all i'd ever do are dry runs, they ruin everyone's day/week/plans without the added difficulty of actually making a bomb, tbh.

 

[kramwest1]

what's blowing up a cargo plane going to achieve, really?



if i were a terrorist all i'd ever do are dry runs, they ruin everyone's day/week/plans without the added difficulty of actually making a bomb, tbh.

Very true. Think of the chaos and disruption from just pulling a fire alarm in an office building or the moron who missed his connection in Denver and said his bag had a bomb in it.
Angry business exec misses DIA flight, diverted to jail after bomb threat - The Denver Post

I think the best news of all of this is that there doesn't seem to be a cohesive plan or a single terrorist source for planning, funding and executing anything.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Blowing up cargo planes disrupts commerce and the economy-plus it's just the fear and visual impact of doing it. Supposedly they had means to record it when it happened. If they can't kill large numbers of people on a commercial flight (and they obviously still can, it's just more difficult for them now then it was before) they still have that. Cargo is a vulnerability and they know that so they have begun to exploit it. They are looking for any and all vulnerabilities.

It's also the fear created if the package is detonated when it's received rather than on the plane. We all remember what happened with the anthrax.

 

[A stor]

Very true. Think of the chaos and disruption from just pulling a fire alarm in an office building or the moron who missed his connection in Denver and said his bag had a bomb in it.
Angry business exec misses DIA flight, diverted to jail after bomb threat - The Denver Post

I think the best news of all of this is that there doesn't seem to be a cohesive plan or a single terrorist source for planning, funding and executing anything.

I agree. From my own work experience as a secretary for my church. When we need office supplies. We order them from from a local office supply retailer. We don't need to order anything from outside the U.S. I check the mail and UPS is very good at screening packages. If something odd would come our way. They would ask us "Did you order this?"

As Mrs. Springsteen mentioned and has made an excellent point. This would be a tactic to instill fear.

 

[yolland]

.

Associated Press, Nov. 5


A Yemen-based al-Qaeda group is claiming responsibility for the international mail bomb plot uncovered late last week as well as the crash of a United Parcel Service cargo plane in September.

A week after authorities intercepted packages in Dubai and Britain that were bound for the U.S., al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula issued a message Friday saying it will continue to strike American and Western interests. They specifically said they would target civilian and cargo aircraft.

...According to an AP translation of the terror group's statement, AQAP said that its "advanced explosives give us the opportunity to detonate (planes) in the air or after they have reached their final target, and they are designed to bypass all detection devices."

...The AQAP message also directed a warning to Saudi Arabia, which was instrumental in passing along the key tip that led to the discovery of the bombs: "These explosives were directed at Jewish Zionist temples, and you intervened to protect them with your treason. God's curse on the oppressors."

 

[Canadiens1131]

I bet the TSA is just ACHING for someone to smuggle a bomb aboard a flight in their anus / vagiiiiiiiina. Who would want to trouble their employees by opting out of the body scanner for a physical exam after that happened?

Newsflash: the terrorists have won.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

LOL, really, no kidding.

That new security measure-yeeeeeeeeeeeeah, I don't think so. I'm not up for the idea of some stranger feeling me up in an airport in front of other people. That is about one of THE dumbest moves a company has ever made. Ever. If somebody could tell me how they think this will legitimately make us safer, I'd love to hear the explanation.

Angela

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

i'm really looking forward to flying back to the states to visit, lemme tell you.

 

[The_Pac_Mule]

Around the world, a race against time bombs in air

The woman stepped off Hadda Street into a pair of courier offices in Yemen's capital. In FedEx and UPS storefronts tucked along shopping centers and travel agencies in San'a, she mailed two Hewlett-Packard printers to the United States.

She used a fake name, address and phone number. She paid in cash. Then she disappeared.

Hidden inside each printer was a bomb powerful enough to down an airplane.

Authorities believe it was the most sophisticated effort yet by al-Qaida in Yemen to strike inside the U.S. Though details are still emerging, a senior U.S. official said evidence points to a plot to blow up cargo planes inside the U.S., either on runways or over American cities.

Alerted to the plot by Saudi intelligence, security officials chased the two packages across five countries, trying frantically over the next two days to prevent an explosion that could have come at any moment.

Several times, the explosive packages were in plain sight. Twice, a bomb was aboard a passenger plane. Once, authorities were just minutes too late to stop a cargo jet with a bomb from departing for its next destination.

The pursuit — recounted to The Associated Press by officials in the U.S., Britain, Yemen, Germany and the United Arab Emirates — shows that even when the world's counterterrorism systems work, preventing an attack is often a terrifyingly close ordeal.

___

For al-Qaida, the two bombs were a significant upgrade over the small device that failed to detonate inside a passenger's underwear on a U.S.-bound jet last Christmas. This time, the bombers packed four times the explosives.

Instead of relying on a suicide bomber to ignite the fuse, the bombmaker wired these devices to explode using the alarm function of two cell phones. The phones were wired to syringes full of lead azide, a powder that takes only a small electric charge to explode.

The printer cartridges were filled with PETN, an industrial explosive that, when X-rayed, would resemble the cartridge's ink powder. Used in heavy construction, PETN is stable enough to endure the jostling of a trans-Atlantic flight but extremely volatile if triggered by a small explosion.

Bomb experts say the cell phone alarm probably would have sent an electrical charge into the syringe, heating a filament and igniting the lead azide. That would trigger the PETN.

U.S. counterterrorism officials believe it was the work of al-Qaida's master bombmaker in Yemen, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who's been linked to the Christmas plot.

UPS and FedEx employees screened the packages in Yemen, according to two U.S. officials who, like most people interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

In Yemen, cargo screening is done manually, one official said. Employees looked at the contents of the packages but never took the printer apart.

Both packages were cleared for delivery.

It was a breakdown in the first line of defense in the cargo system. The U.S. doesn't inspect international packages until they arrive, relying instead on shipping companies to do the screening.

The addresses on the packages were outdated locations for two Chicago synagogues. The recipients were figures from the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition — historic episodes in which Christians persecuted Muslims.

For these reasons, officials believe al-Qaida never intended the bombs to be delivered and hoped instead for an airplane explosion.

The packages were dropped off Wednesday, Oct. 27. The FedEx bomb was loaded aboard a passenger jet, a Qatar Airways plane that seats 144. It left Yemen on Oct. 28, for Doha, Qatar. The UPS bomb left Yemen early that same evening, headed to Cologne, Germany.

___

As Thursday evening turned to Friday morning in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the CIA station received an urgent call from Saudi intelligence. Two bombs were being shipped from Yemen, bound for the United States. One was UPS, the other FedEx, and the Saudis had both the tracking numbers.

The AP is not reporting some details about the tip at the request of intelligence and administration officials who said doing so would jeopardize national security.

A senior CIA official in Riyadh relayed the tip to the agency's headquarters in Virginia, where it was early Thursday evening.

CIA officials called the White House, and homeland security adviser John Brennan briefed President Barack Obama, who was in his living quarters.

The FBI called FedEx and UPS, which had participated in a government terrorism drill in August. The exercise: A homemade bomb slipped onto a cargo plane.

U.S. and Saudi authorities put Europe on alert. Britain's intelligence division, MI-6, also received a tip through its office in Yemen.

U.S. authorities had been monitoring steady intelligence on a possible attack like this since early September, a U.S. official said. In early October, the U.S. received a general tip from the Saudis about a possible al-Qaida effort to down airplanes, intelligence officials said.

Also in late September, authorities intercepted a package from Yemen containing papers, books and other items sent to a Chicago-area Muslim bookstore, a senior U.S. official said. At the time, counterterrorism officials thought perhaps the package included coded messages or was intended to set up contact with allies in Chicago, the official said.

Now, investigators believe al-Qaida just wanted to track the package and see how long it took to get into the U.S. so it could time its bombs more effectively.

The official did not identify the bookstore, but FBI and Internal Revenue Service investigators have recently taken an interest in IQRA International Educational Foundation, a nonprofit Islamic foundation that runs a Chicago-area bookstore.

Financial manager Wahaj Ahmed said this past week that IRS auditors showed up about a month ago to inspect the books. That was around the time the group received a FedEx envelope from a company wanting to do business with IQRA.

The company was based in Yemen, he said.

The FBI arrived a few days ago, asking questions about the envelope.

"They said anything emanating from that area, they were tracking it," Ahmed said.

___

With U.S. intelligence on notice, officials in Saudi Arabia summoned the local liaison for Germany's Federal Criminal Police into a meeting to discuss the bombs.

When the meeting began, a senior German official said, it 1:34 a.m. Friday in Germany and the UPS bomb was sitting at the airport in Cologne, waiting to leave for England.

The liaison officer hurriedly called Germany and authorities rushed to stop the plane. At 2:40 a.m., police ordered that the package could not leave the country.

It was too late. The cargo plane had taken off 36 minutes earlier.

There had never been a chance to spot the bomb in Germany. UPS is among several "safe" companies, German officials said, so the packages weren't inspected.

The plane was on its way to central England. On the ground, officials didn't know for sure whether a bomb was on board, and if so, when it would go off.

___

It is a 90-minute flight from Cologne to East Midlands, England.

At the White House, Brennan began calling U.S. intelligence leaders to brief them about the plot.

The FBI called Jewish organizations in the Chicago area, a U.S. official said, and placed two locations under surveillance.

When the UPS plane landed in England, it was just after 10 p.m. Thursday in Washington and 3 a.m. Friday in England. The bombs had begun their journey more than 24 hours before and neither had been found.

British investigators were waiting for plane, tipped off by Saudi, U.S. and German officials. Leicestershire police set up a security perimeter and pulled the package off the plane. Police searched the plane, and even the printer, for hours but found nothing.

Pauline Neville-Jones, British minister of state security, was briefed and Brennan spoke with British Deputy Security Adviser Ollie Robbins. But at 10 a.m. local time, after nearly seven hours of search, police concluded there was no explosive.

The UPS plane was cleared for takeoff to Philadelphia, and on to Chicago.

___

While British police were searching the UPS package, the FedEX bomb arrived in Dubai aboard a passenger plane from Qatar, where it had spent the night.

Dubai police, having been tipped off to the package, discovered the bomb shortly after it arrived, according to a UAE official security source. The sun was coming up Friday morning in Washington as investigators in Dubai got the first look at al-Qaida's deadly device.

The U.S. banned all inbound cargo from Yemen.

At 8:30 a.m. in Washington, the government alerted all cargo carriers: Someone is trying to ship explosives from Yemen into the U.S., and we don't know how many there are.

___

In England, police gave the all-clear. Despite not finding the bomb, authorities cleared the plane for takeoff for Philadelphia, and on to Chicago.

Before it could leave, however, British officials were told about the discovery in Dubai and were urged to look again. Brennan and Robbins spoke by phone a second time, and Dubai officials told British police exactly how to locate the bomb.

At 2 p.m. local time, nearly 12 hours after the UPS bomb arrived in England, police put the security perimeter back in place and resume the search.

Brennan and Robbins talked a third time, then Brennan called Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a crucial but sometimes unreliable ally in the U.S.-led effort to wipe out al-Qaida.

At the White House, the plot was a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's morning security briefing.

Exactly when police in England discovered the bomb remains unclear, but authorities there removed the security perimeter and left the airport at 5:30 p.m. local time.

By then the search was on for all packages coming out of Yemen. FBI and Transportation Security Administration officials boarded cargo planes in Philadelphia and Newark, N.J., on Friday, pulling out packages and searching for bombs.

TSA said the searches were done "out of an abundance of caution." But at the White House and in capitals around the world, the question was more urgent. Are there more bombs?

___

Homeland Security officials alerted Jewish leaders around the country, through what's known as the Secure Community Network, that synagogues should be on the lookout for suspicious packages from Yemen.

UPS, FedEx and Mideast-based shipper Aramex put a halt to all shipments out of Yemen.

As Obama prepared to address the nation, two U.S. fighter jets escorted Emirates Flight 201 into New York. The flight was from Dubai, and investigators feared packages from Yemen may have been on board.

Obama called it a "credible terrorist threat against our country." Though he stopped short of blaming al-Qaida in Yemen for the plot, he singled out the group and pledged again to destroy it.

That night, in an unusual move, Brennan released a statement thanking Saudi Arabia for a tip that "helped underscore the imminence of the threat emanating from Yemen."

___

Al-Qaida in Yemen is easily the most tech-savvy of al-Qaida's affiliate groups. So, intelligence officials monitored jihadist Web sites for days, waiting for some claim of credit.

Finally, a week after the attempted attack, al-Qaida in Yemen sent word late Friday afternoon on a jihadist Web site that it had been behind the plot.

"Our advanced explosives give us the opportunity to detonate them in the air or after they have reached their final target, and they are designed to bypass all detection devices," the statement said.

Even though the bombs never exploded, al-Qaida declared itself victorious for slipping its bombs past security.

And it pledged there would more bombs, on more planes.

Around the world, a race against time bombs in air - Yahoo! News

I think most people don't realize how close we came this time. One of the bombs was defused just 17 minutes before it was set to explode.

 

[Canadiens1131]

It just shows that there will always be human error no matter to what extent we have serious security measures in place.

 

[BVS]

I think most people don't realize how close we came this time. One of the bombs was defused just 17 minutes before it was set to explode.

Shit, Jack Bauer would have waited till there were 3 seconds left...

 

[The_Pac_Mule]

Dammit Chloe!!! Which wire do I cut?!

 

[A stor]

Pac Mule, I didn't realize how close we came to a bomb going off. This is really frightening.

These terrorist don't even have their history correct. "The recipients were figures from the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition." Sorry but it was the Catholic Church of Rome, centuries ago. No Catholic alive today believes either was a good thing. Nor are we responsible for the ancient past. I'm not making light of this at all. It's just their (terrorist) reasoning is insane. It was meant to be an attack on innocent people. Soft targets because they are too cowardly to face their military in their own countries.

Many thanks to all of the authorities, inspectors, intellegence, in every country mentioned above. Lives were saved because of them. We owe them much gratitude.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

London, England (CNN) -- An explosive device found in a cargo plane in England last month probably would have exploded over the Eastern Seaboard of the United States if it had not been discovered, Scotland Yard said Wednesday.

The device was primed to explode about six hours after it was found, a senior U.S. counterterrorism source told CNN.

"Forensic examination has indicated that if the device had activated it would have been at 10:30 hrs BST on Friday, 29 October 2010," the Scotland Yard statement said. "If the device had not been removed from the aircraft the activation could have occurred over the eastern seaboard of the U.S."

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based arm of the al Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility last week for the plot to send explosive devices on cargo planes bound for the United States.

White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the findings by British authorities "underscore the serious nature of the attempted AQAP attack and the challenge we all face in trying to prevent or disrupt such attacks."

Shapiro cited "the collective efforts of many dedicated intelligence and law enforcement professionals" in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United States for disrupting the attacks.

"The United States will continue to work closely with these partners and the government of Yemen to address and counter the threat posed by AQAP as well as to provide humanitarian and economic assistance to help shape a stable and secure Yemen," Shapiro said.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates and Britain found two explosives-laden packages sent from Yemen on October 29 that were addressed to synagogues in Chicago, Illinois.

A statement by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said that since Western media did not link a September UPS plane crash to the group, "we decided not to announce it so we could carry on a similar operation."

"We did that this time using two devices, one of which was sent via the American UPS company and the other via the American FedEx company," the statement said.

The devices, loaded with the powerful explosive PETN, were packed in computer printer toner cartridges and designed to be detonated by a cell phone, a source close to the investigation has said.

U.S. investigators believe that al Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim Hasan al-Asiri, 28, is linked to the packages, according to a federal official who was briefed by authorities. Al-Asiri, who is thought to be in Yemen, is a Saudi who ranked high on Saudi Arabia's list of most wanted fugitives published in February 2009. He is also believed to be the bomber who designed last year's failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner as it landed in Detroit, Michigan, on December 25.

A U.S. official said that the devices found in the packages last month were very sophisticated and could have exploded in flight, but it wasn't clear whether that was the intent.

The group's statement said the devices' designs "allow us the opportunity to detonate them in the air or after their arrival to their ultimate destination, and they are designed to pass through all detectors."

The packages were discovered thanks to a tip from Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials provided tracking numbers of the two packages bound for Jewish organizations in the United States, enabling quick tracing to the United Kingdom and Dubai, a source told CNN.

After the incidents, U.S. government authorities grounded packages originating from Yemen destined for the United States. Yemen has asked for outside help to thwart terror groups, but the country, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, is still used for operations, U.S. officials say.