Fears that al-Qaeda is planning a wave of suicide attacks with syringe bombs have been heightened after it emerged that a Somali man tried to board an aircraft last month carrying the same type of device as that used by the Detroit bomber.

Police in Somalia said the terrorist was caught “red handed” in Mogadishu trying to take powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe onto a commercial airliner bound for Dubai. The suspect had 1kg of chemical powder – more than 12 times as much as the Detroit bomber – though the exact composition of the chemicals is not yet known.  Read more... (561 words, 1 image, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

Still small in numbers, but it reaches Saudi Arabia, Somalia and now U.S.

SANA, Yemen – Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has rapidly evolved into an expanding and ambitious regional terrorist network thanks in part to a weakened, impoverished and distracted Yemeni government.

While Yemen has chased two homegrown rebellions, over the last year the Qaeda cell here has begun sharing resources across borders and has been spurred on to more ambitious attacks by a leadership strengthened by released Qaeda detainees and returning fighters from Iraq.  Read more... (1825 words, 1 image, estimated 7:18 mins reading time)

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) — Yemen’s foreign minister says his government has not sufficiently focused on al Qaeda because it has turned its attention to insurgencies rocking the northern and southern regions there.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview Wednesday that “our fault was that we spared al Qaeda” because of other conflicts — fighting Houthi rebels in the north and secessionists in the south.

He spoke to Amanpour from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

Al-Qirbi also said Yemen isn’t accepting direct U.S. intervention, despite reports that the United States made military strikes against Yemeni targets late last year, and he said his country’s forces can conduct military action against al Qaeda.  Read more... (986 words, 1 image, estimated 3:57 mins reading time)

A dangerous explosive allegedly concealed by Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in his underwear could have blown a hole in the side of his Detroit-bound aircraft if it had been detonated, according to two federal sources briefed on the investigation. Authorities said they are still analyzing a badly damaged syringe that Abdulmutallab allegedly employed as a detonating device on Christmas Day. But preliminary conclusions indicate that he allegedly used 80 grams of PETN — almost twice as much of the highly explosive material as used by convicted shoe bomber Richard C. Reid.  Read more... (1319 words, 1 image, estimated 5:17 mins reading time)

The Yemeni official said one leading figure in AQAP, Mohammed Saleh Omair, was confirmed dead in Thursday’s raid.

He was one of at least 30 suspected al-Qaeda fighters have been killed in a dawn air raid by Yemeni forces in the eastern Yemeni province of Shabwa.

Rashad al-Alaimy, the deputy defense minister, said the operations were carried out after security officials received information about al-Qaida plans to carry out suicide attacks in the capital San’a against the British Embassy and foreign schools. The United States cooperates closely with Yemen in combating al Qaeda militancy. Pentagon officials were not immediately available to comment on any U.S. involvement in the raid.  Read more... (340 words, 1 image, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s path towards apparent Islamist militancy took him to University College London and a luxury block just off the city’s Oxford Street.

But no part of his life was so seemingly anomalous to a would-be terrorist as the manicured lawns and tennis courts of the British International school in Togo, where he is believed to have first expressed extreme views.

Today, investigators were trying to establish exactly what provoked him to try to detonate an explosive device as a Northwest Airlines jet made its final descent into Detroit airport on Christmas Day.  Read more... (1224 words, 1 image, estimated 4:54 mins reading time)

Attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253 has belatedly turned spotlight on terrorist network inside troubled state

The claim by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab that he was trained, armed and tasked with blowing up an American airliner over US soil by al-Qaida operatives based in Yemen is the western intelligence community’s worst nightmare come true.

Since the September 11 attacks, the US and allied security services hunting Osama bin Laden and his associates have focused their attention on the mountains of eastern Afghanistan and the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan.  Read more... (808 words, 1 image, estimated 3:14 mins reading time)

The attempt by Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a fanatical wealthy Nigerian mechanical engineering graduate, to bring down a trans-Atlantic Northwest flight with 290 passengers on approach to Detroit’s Metropolitan airport with a PETN bomb on Christmas is the latest example of the mutation of the goals, connections and methods of terrorists. Before looking at the macro-picture, there are several noteworthy details.  Read more... (2199 words, 1 image, estimated 8:48 mins reading time)

The Cheery in-flight magazine of Yemenia, the national airline of Yemen, still runs articles encouraging adventurous tourists to visit the coffee-growing region in the country’s north, its terraced hilltop villages a vision of Old Arabia, and the fabled eastern valleys that were once home to the Queen of Sheba. But anyone trying to get off the beaten track in Yemen these days may find a bit too much adventure. About two-thirds of the country is out of government control and in the hands of either separatist groups or local tribes, some of which have a habit of kidnapping foreign tourists to use as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government. Such hostages were rarely harmed until this June, when nine foreigners were kidnapped — including two German women and a South Korean woman whose mutilated bodies were later discovered by shepherds. After the attack, the government effectively stopped granting permission to foreigners — including journalists — to travel anywhere but the capital, Sana’a, and the coastal region around the port city of Aden.  Read more... (1269 words, 1 image, estimated 5:05 mins reading time)

US special forces have been sent to Yemen to train its army amid fears the unstable Arab state is becoming a strategically important base for al-Qaeda. American officials told The Daily Telegraph the country is becoming a “reserve” base for the terrorist network, which considers it a safe haven.

The deployment comes as Yemen’s neighbours said they had arrested “dozens” of al-Qaeda fighters moving in and out of the country. Oman, a moderate Arab state on Yemen’s border, is to increase the number of naval patrols around the Arabian peninsula to try to intercept suspected terrorists on the move between bases in Yemen and South Asia. Fearful that Yemen is in danger of becoming a failed state, America has now sent a small number of special forces teams to improve training of Yemen’s army in reaction to the threat.  Read more... (715 words, 1 image, estimated 2:52 mins reading time)