Plane explosives '17 minutes' from detonating
Source: Agencies |
November 5, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ONE of two mail bombs sent from Yemen last week was disarmed just 17 minutes before it was set to go off, the French interior minister said yesterday.
Officials in the United States and Britain declined to comment, and a source in the United Arab Emirates said it was not an accurate description of the bomb found in that country.
"One of the packages was defused only 17 minutes before the moment that it was set to explode," Brice Hortefeux said. He?made no other statement about the Yemen bomb plot during an interview?on France's state-run France-2 television that focused on other security-related matters.
"If this was a reference to the device found in the Federal Express site in Dubai, then it is not correct," the source in the UAE, who is familiar with the investigation, said. The security source was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and could not be named.
Hortefeux did not say where he got the information about the timing, although US and European intelligence officials have been exchanging information on the plot. The French Interior Ministry would not elaborate on Hortefeux's comment.
In Britain, police would not comment, and investigators in the US said they could not confirm the 17-minute figure.
When investigators pulled the Chicago-bound packages off cargo planes in England and the UAE on Friday, they found the bombs wired to cell phones and hidden in the toner cartridges of computer printers.
The communication cards had been removed and the phones could not receive calls, officials said, making it likely the terrorists intended the timer functions to detonate the bombs, US officials said.
Officials in the United States and Britain declined to comment, and a source in the United Arab Emirates said it was not an accurate description of the bomb found in that country.
"One of the packages was defused only 17 minutes before the moment that it was set to explode," Brice Hortefeux said. He?made no other statement about the Yemen bomb plot during an interview?on France's state-run France-2 television that focused on other security-related matters.
"If this was a reference to the device found in the Federal Express site in Dubai, then it is not correct," the source in the UAE, who is familiar with the investigation, said. The security source was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and could not be named.
Hortefeux did not say where he got the information about the timing, although US and European intelligence officials have been exchanging information on the plot. The French Interior Ministry would not elaborate on Hortefeux's comment.
In Britain, police would not comment, and investigators in the US said they could not confirm the 17-minute figure.
When investigators pulled the Chicago-bound packages off cargo planes in England and the UAE on Friday, they found the bombs wired to cell phones and hidden in the toner cartridges of computer printers.
The communication cards had been removed and the phones could not receive calls, officials said, making it likely the terrorists intended the timer functions to detonate the bombs, US officials said.
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