Terrorism expert Max Abrahms says Dubai plane crash may be linked to Yemen bomb plot
AN international terrorism expert has urged authorities to "connect the dots" between a recent UPS cargo plane crash in Dubai and the Yemen bomb plot, saying the two incidents have too many similarities to ignore.
Yemeni investigators today questioned a woman suspected of posting parcel bombs on two US-bound flights in an alleged al Qaeda plot that sparked a global air cargo security alert on Friday.
As forensic analysis continued on the bombs, leading US terrorism expert Dr Max Abrahms called for investigators to re-examine the cause of a UPS 747 cargo plane crash on September 3, the Gulf News reported.
The plane crashed after a fire broke out on board shortly after takeoff and its two pilots struggled to land the plane at Dubai.
The initial investigation into the crash, which killed the two pilots on impact, identified lithium batteries on board as being potentially to blame.
However Dr Abrahms, a fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and on the Empirical Studies of Conflict project at Princeton University and the Hoover Institute, said authorities should consider it was caused by an explosive device similar to the ones found Friday.
"I think it would be very prudent to connect the dots in this incident," Abrahms told the Gulf News.
"It seems like common sense now and clearly there are similarities between the crash and this latest incident."
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported the two bombs concealed inside cargo packages shipped from Yemen were expertly constructed and unusually sophisticated.
Unnamed officials told the Times the bombs, which were intercepted Friday in Britain and Dubai, were further evidence that al Qaedas affiliate in Yemen was steadily improving its abilities to strike on US soil.
The Washington Post and Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported that investigators believed the mastermind behind the plot was a Saudi bomb-maker who last year sent his brother to his death in an effort to kill a Saudi prince.
Ibrahim Hassan al Asiri, a 28-year-old who is on Saudi Arabia's most-wanted list, introduced a PETN-based bomb in a body cavity of his younger brother, Abdullah, who pretended to be turning himself in, The Post reported.
The bomb killed his brother and wounded Mohammed bin Nayef, a top counterterrorism official and Saudi royal.
Asiri, who is based in Yemen, is also believed to have built the underwear bomb of Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man who was trained in Yemen and attempted to blow up a commercial aircraft approaching Detroit last December.
The news reports follow the detention of a medical student by Yemeni investigators in connection with the latest plot.
The woman is studying medicine at Sanaa University and her father is a petroleum engineer, a Yemeni security official told AFP. She was held, along with her mother, after her mobile phone number was found on the receipt for the parcel bombs, the official added.
Investigators said that the bomb discovered at the Dubai airport was concealed in a Hewlett-Packard desktop printer, with high explosives packed into a printer cartridge to avoid detection by scanners, The New York Times reported.
"The wiring of the device indicates that this was done by professionals," the paper quoted an official involved in the investigation as saying. "It was set up so that if you scan it, all the printer components would look right."
The bomb discovered in Britain was also hidden in a printer cartridge, the newspaper said.
US officials have said the packages were addressed to synagogues in Chicago.
US President Barack Obama made it clear he suspects the involvement of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - the Yemen-based branch of Usama bin Laden's extremist network - and vowed to wipe out the organisation.
Both bombs found on Friday were addressed to synagogues in the Chicago area, contained PETN - a highly explosive material which could have brought down the planes.
