Turns out last week’s explosive packages from Yemen weren’t the first intercepted—packages shipped from Yemen in September were also searched by U.S. counter-terrorism officials. When they were found to hold household items like books and CDs, they were forwarded to their destination. Now officials are speculating that these packages were a practice run for a terrorist attack.
Via the NYTimes:
In September, after American counterterrorism agencies received information linking the packages to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror network’s branch in Yemen, intelligence officers stopped the shipments in transit and searched them, said the officials, who would discuss the operation only on the condition of anonymity. They found no explosives, and the packages were permitted to continue to what appeared to be “random addresses” with no connection to the terrorist group in Chicago.
…The apparent test run might have permitted the plotters to estimate when cargo planes carrying the doctored toner cartridges would be over Chicago or another city. That would conceivably enable them to set timers on the two devices to set off explosions where they would cause the greatest damage.
That is a lot of speculation with zero evidence. Thanks for disseminating this gov’t propoganda. Keep up the good work!
@1, welcome to Slog! The worst thing is realizing you’ve grown used to it.
Sending ink cartridges from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the wealthiest seems a bit too obvious. Even a daft agent would catch that. Hey look -Chicago it’s receiving its printing supplies from Yemen! Duh! Unless Hewlett Packard opened a plant there, than this seems like the keystone wing of Al Qaeda.
What I’m afraid of is when they start (and unfortunately they will) sending them from Europe.
They just blew up a pipeline in Yemen.
Oil futures just skyrocketed.
Enjoy the depression.
@3 try Germany.
Anonymous government officials who say the government was on top of things, now that’s news!
if they’re reduced to mailing bombs, and even that doesn’t work, well, go usa i guess.
No, actually, it’s smart on their part. Low cost, low exposure, and max damage if it works. Bombs are pretty cheap, really.
Actually, it sounds like they were indeed on top of things this time, anonymous sources or no. They found the splodey stuff before it went boom, after all.
So go smart antiterrorist intelligence work. Beats the shock and the awe and the invadin.
Even Bill Maher is sick of politically-correct groveling before anti-Western Muslims.
@9 And there’s our thread-killer. EOF
@8 Of course it sounds like they’re on top of things, that’s the message they’re promoting. But since it’s coming from anonymous sources, we can’t verify that. I don’t pat the government on the back just because an anonymous government official tells me I should.
How on earth could they estimate when cargo plans were in the air? Tracking at UPS usually goes: 1) billing information received, 2) package has left distribution center for destination 3) [3 days of no tracking updates] 4) package is out for delivery.
“planes”, I meant to type.
Never forget that the terrorists are all Wahhabi fanatics, most of them schooled in the America-hating madrassas that the Saudi government funds.
Saudi Arabia created this mess – not us. Well, except for Dick Cheney and George Bush.
@14 Any “the terrorists are all ______” statement is inherently overly simplistic, naive, and fucking retarded. C’mon Will, you’re supposed to be a Slog commentor, not a Fox commentator.
@15: Ahem, it’s Will you’re talking about…”inherently overly simplistic, naive, and fucking retarded” is what he does. It’s a miracle on the order of fish and loaves if he doesn’t hit the simplistic, naive, and fucking retarded trifecta in each post.
Nah, sorry. If you knew where the funding and volunteers and religious fanaticism came from, you’d realize I’m sadly correct on this.
The devil’s bargain made to found the eternal Kingdom of Saud was always a bad one. Nuke em.