Yemen hunts bomb suspect, U.S.-born cleric - msnbc.com

SAN'A, Yemen — Yemen launched a major operation Tuesday to arrest a Saudi bombmaker suspected of being behind a foiled bomb plot involving U.S.-bound parcels.

The aim of the operation in the provinces of Maarib and Shabwa was to capture Ibrahim al-Asiri, as well as the U.S.-born radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who is wanted by Washington for his links to al-Qaida, a Yemeni security official told Reuters.

Yemeni authorities also began the trial in absentia of al-Awlaki , who has been linked to the failed bombing of a U.S.-bound plane in December 2009 that was claimed by Yemen's al-Qaida wing and who is thought to be in southern Yemen.

"Asiri is believed to be hiding and moving with senior al-Qaida elements such as (Yemen's al-Qaida leader) Nasser al-Wahayshi," the official said. "Security intelligence are still tracking them down to exactly identify their whereabouts. The campaign includes intensive intelligence and military work."

Security forces had been deployed to parts of the two provinces and were working to seal off some areas, he added.

Maarib and Shabwa are neighboring provinces that are known for their impenetrable desert landscape. Shabwa is in central Yemen and borders the Arabian Sea, while Maarib lies to the west of the country.

The two parcel bombs were intercepted last week on cargo planes in Britain and Dubai and are thought to be the work of al-Qaida's Yemen-based arm, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), U.S. officials say.

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The U.S. Treasury has blacklisted al-Awlaki as a "specially designated global terrorist." Earlier this year, the United States authorized the CIA to capture or kill him.

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Last week's plot deepened Western security fears focused on Yemen after AQAP claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb that Saudi Arabia's security chief narrowly survived in August 2009 and a foiled Christmas Day attack on a U.S.-bound plane.

President Barack Obama has increased funding for Yemen this year, providing $150 million in military assistance alone.

Unmanned American drone aircraft gather information about militants and have occasionally fired missiles at them, although neither Washington nor San'a is keen to admit this.

Joint U.S.-Yemeni security operations in the past year have failed to kill or capture AQAP's top leadership.

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The muscular approach risks provoking a fierce backlash among Yemenis already deeply hostile to the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and to Washington's support for Israel.

'Dry run'?
In a fresh development over the interception of the bombs, it was reported that American intelligence officials tracked several shipments of household goods from Yemen to Chicago in September and considered that the parcels might be a "dry run" for a militant attack.

Intelligence officials believe the tracking of the shipments may have been used to plan the route and timing for two parcel bombs discovered on U.S.-bound planes in Dubai and London.

"That was one scenario that was considered," an official told The New York Times.

The "dry run" involved a carton of household goods including books, religious literature, and a computer disk, but no explosives, shipped from Yemen to Chicago, the report said.

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"We received information several weeks ago that potentially connected these packages to AQAP. The boxes were stopped in transit and searched. They contained papers, books and other materials, but no explosives," an official, who was familiar with details of the shipments and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified intelligence, told The Associated Press.

The official also disclosed that both mail bombs, one recovered in Dubai and the other in Britain on Friday, were wired to detonators that used cell phone technology.

It still was not clear whether those detonators would have been set off by telephone calls or by an internal alarm.

The bombs were hidden in printer toner cartridges and would have been powerful enough to destroy the planes carrying them, British officials said.

The New York Times said the apparent test run may have allowed plotters to estimate when planes carrying the explosive toner cartridges would be over Chicago or another city.

That would permit them to set timers on the two devices to trigger explosions where they would cause the greatest damage, the Times said.

Nobody, including the Internet-savvy al-Qaida group in Yemen, has taken credit for the failed attack. Jihadist Web sites contained numerous messages praising the attempted bombing but nothing official from the group's leadership.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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