Cargo plane bomb plot: Cobra review 'could lead to new security measures' - Telegraph.co.uk

Industry figures fear it could lead to a new, and unneccesary, overhaul of airport security after investigators concluded that the terrorists had designed a package to blow up passenger jets in a Lockerbie-style terrorist outrage.

Ministers and officials are expected to discuss tougher checks on freight.

The review could lead air passengers to be subjected to "ludicrous" new security measures, the boss of budget airline Ryanair.

Michael O'Leary, the airline's chief executive, said authorities might now make travel "even more uncomfortable and tedious" for travellers.

The device found at East Midlands airport on Friday had left Yemen on a passenger aircraft, The Daily Telegraph has learnt, before it was switched to a UPS cargo plane. The second device, found in Dubai, was carried on two Qatar Airways passenger flights before it was intercepted.

Sources close to the investigation in Yemen said because there were no scheduled cargo flights out of the country it was likely the terrorists knew the bombs would be loaded on to passenger planes for at least part of their journey.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, also admitted it was possible that the US-bound bomb found at East Midlands could have detonated over Britain if it had not been found, because of the unpredictability of freight routes.

In further developments:

* A woman was being hunted in Yemen after posting the bombs, using an identity stolen from a student.

* Investigators in Yemen said they were examining 26 other suspect packages.

* British police faced criticism from the US over their failure to find the East Midlands device during their initial search.

* Downing Street was forced to defend David Cameron’s decision to say nothing about the bomb plot for more than 24 hours.

* The airline pilots’ union said it had been warning for years of cargo being a weak link in air travel that could be exploited by terrorists.

* A former head of security at airport operator BAA, Norman Shanks, said checks on freight were not as stringent than those on passengers.

The two bombs, concealed inside computer printers, were virtually impossible to detect by X-ray screening because they contained an odourless explosive and used timers that would have looked like part of the printers’ electronics.

They were designed to explode in mid-air and would have been as capable of bringing down an aircraft as the device that blew up PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, killing 270 people.

More than half of all freight to the US is carried on passenger flights and Lord Carlisle of Berriew, the former government adviser on terrorism, said there was every chance a parcel bomb could end up on a passenger plane.

“If you put a parcel into UPS, you have no way of knowing what flight it is going to go on,” he said. “It could end up on a passenger flight.”

One of the bombs went to Dubai via Doha in Qatar on a passenger aircraft. The device that was found at East Midlands airport left the Yemeni capital of Sana’a on a passenger aircraft, which is also thought to have stopped at Doha, before it travelled to Cologne in Germany and Britain in cargo planes.

Mrs May said: “What became clear overnight on Friday and into Saturday was that it was indeed a viable device and could have exploded.

“It could have exploded on the aircraft, and it could have exploded when the aircraft was in mid air. Had that happened it could have brought the aircraft down.”

Mrs May said it was “difficult” to say whether the explosion would have happened over Britain or America. “With these freight flights sometimes the routing can change at the last moment so it is difficult for those who are planning the detonation to know exactly where — if it is detonated to a time, for example — the aircraft will be,” she added

After investigators in Yemen confirmed that they were examining 26 other packages, John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s counter-­terrorism adviser, said “it would be very imprudent … to presume that there are no other [bombs]".

Mr Brennan described the bombs as “sophisticated”, adding: “They were self-contained. They were able to be detonated at a time of the terrorists’ choosing.”

He said the plot “bears the hallmark” of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the terrorist organisation’s Yemeni-based operation, whose leaders include Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born preacher.

The most likely bomb maker is said to be Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who made the device used in the foiled Christmas airline attack over Detroit.

The bombs, which were addressed to two synagogues in Chicago, contained the contact details of a 22-year-old computing student, Hannan al-Samawi, who was arrested on Saturday night.

However, investigators released her at the weekend and said they were now seeking another woman who it was thought had posted the devices using Miss al-Samawi’s personal details.

Intelligence that foiled the plot may have come from Jabir Jubran al-Fayfi, a former leading member of AQAP, who surrendered to the Saudi authorities last month.

In light of the plot, the US National Transportation Safety Board is re-examining the wreckage of a UPS cargo jet that crashed in Dubai in September, although sources in Dubai said there was no evidence of an explosion.

American officials expressed concern at the fact that the bomb at East Midlands was discovered only during a second police search.

David Cameron said the Government would “take whatever steps are necessary” to keep British people safe, but Downing Street was forced on to the defensive after the Prime Minister took until 6pm on Saturday – 26 hours after he was first briefed on the incident – to make a public statement.

It was left to Mr Obama, and later Mrs May, to break the news that viable devices had been found. Sources said Mr Cameron “wanted ministers to take the lead”.

Balpa, the pilots’ union, said it had warned for years of the threat from cargo, suggesting that the focus on checking passengers and their luggage “left the door open” for attacks by other means.

Mr Shanks, now an aviation consultant, called for a fundamental review of security.

"We're looking at introducing the explosive detection systems that we currently use for passengers' baggage which goes into the hold," he told the BBC.

"Now this really can't be introduced for every package, but it could be used for packages coming from areas where there is a known risk."

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Terror bombs were primed to down cargo planes in mid-air - The Guardian

Security officials inspect UPS containers in the cargo area of East Midlands airport after an explosive package was found on a plane from Yemen. Photograph: David Jones/PA

Sophisticated bombs contained in packages sent from Yemen were designed to explode in the air and bring down the cargo planes carrying them, the government confirmed.

Intelligence experts believe the use of the devices, contained in printer cartridges on board two Chicago-bound cargo planes, represents a shift in terrorist tactics to commercial targets.

President Barack Obama phoned David Cameron to thank him personally for the UK's "close co-operation" in helping disrupt the bomb plot. The pair agreed that their countries' respective authorities would remain in close contact in the coming days, the White House said.

Speaking ahead of a meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, Cameron said: "We have to do even more to crack down and cut out the cancer of al-Qaida in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. We have immediately banned packages coming to or through Britain from the Yemen. In the end these terrorists think our interconnectedness, our openness as modern countries, is what makes us weak. They are wrong – it is a source of our strength, and we will use that strength, that determination, that power and that solidarity to defeat them."

Cameron also spoke to Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who later said his security forces had arrested a Yemeni woman in connection with the plot. He gave no other details about her.

Both of the devices, one discovered in the hold of a plane that landed at East Midlands airport after flying from Cologne, the other on a plane in Dubai, were described as "extremely professional" by intelligence officials.

One was linked to a mobile phone, while the other was attached to a timer. The Observer understands that the East Midlands device was so sophisticated an examination by forensics experts initially suggested it did not contain explosives. "Even when it was examined, the sniffer dogs couldn't detect it," a security source said. "It was only when they [forensics experts] had a second look at it they realised what it was."

It has emerged the devices were discovered only after a tip-off from Saudi intelligence. "This… started with good information from the Saudis," the US homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, said. "We were then immediately able to work with other countries, particularly the UK and the UAE, to segregate these packages, to begin the analysis about what they were."

If the devices had blown up over the Atlantic, or any other large stretch of water, identifying the cause would have been difficult because there would have been little trace left of the planes. But the discovery of the packages – addressed to two US synagogues – is a potentially vital weapon for the security services. "Now we've got them, we can figure out how they have been made, who made them and how to stop them," one source said.

The sophistication of the devices is likely to raise concerns about airport security. Investigators in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, investigated 24 other suspect packages yesterday, according to a security official. Authorities were also questioning cargo workers at the airport and employees of the local shipping firms contracted to work with commercial logistics companies.

The home secretary, Theresa May, said a preliminary examination of the device found at East Midlands airport had confirmed it was viable: "The target of the device may have been an aircraft and, had it detonated, the aircraft could have been brought down," she said. "But we do not believe the perpetrators… would have known the location of the device when they planned for it to explode.

"At this stage we have no information to indicate another attack is imminent. The threat level is already at severe, meaning that a terrorist attack in this country is highly likely. We do not plan to change that threat level at this stage."

The Metropolitan police said "early indications suggest [the device] had the potential to bring down an aircraft in flight if detonated".

All unaccompanied air freight originating in Yemen and moving into or through the UK has been suspended. Direct cargo and passenger flights from Yemen were suspended for security reasons in January, following the failed attempt to bomb an aircraft destined for Detroit the month before.

Security sources acknowledged that targeting cargo planes represented a shift in tactics for terrorist groups. "These people are seeking any way they can to attack," a security source said. "This was a potential attack on US business and the impact could have been huge. Damaging the west's economy is a key objective of al-Qaida."

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