Yemeni forces searched yesterday for suspected al-Qaeda militants behind a plot to bomb Jewish targets in Chicago, uncovered by the interception in Britain and Dubai of parcels with explosives sent from Yemen.
US President Barack Obama addressed the nation on Friday, saying US authorities would spare no effort to find the source of the packages that he called a “credible terrorist threat” aimed at two places of Jewish worship.
One parcel intercepted in Dubai had a bomb hidden in a printer, which bore all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda, said Dubai police, whose experts defused the device. British forensic experts were examining the other parcel yesterday.
“The parcel was prepared in a professional way where a closed electrical circuit was connected to a mobile phone SIM card hidden inside the printer,” a Dubai police statement said.
The plot originating in Yemen will further heighten security concerns about the unstable Arab state, seen by the West as the home of al-Qaeda’s most inventive and audacious affiliate.
Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and one of its leading figures, US-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlak, have been priority US targets since it took responsibility for a failed plot to blow up a US jet on Christmas Day last year.
Dubai police said they found pentaerythritol trinitrate in a printer and cartridge, the same chemical explosive used in the bomb sewn into the underwear of a Nigerian man charged with the attempted Christmas attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the parcels, but US officials suspect AQAP, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, whose militants killed 3,000 people using hijacked airliners in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US
The White House said Saudi Arabia had helped to identify the threat from Yemen, while Britain and the United Arab Emirates also provided information.
One of the packages was found on a United Parcel Service (UPS) cargo plane at East Midlands Airport, about 260km north of London. The other was discovered at a FedEx Corp facility in Dubai.
UPS and FedEx said they were halting shipments from Yemen. UPS planes were searched and then cleared in New Jersey and Philadelphia.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary