Two bombs discovered on planes over the weekend are believed by authorities to be the work of Ibrahim Hassan Taleh Al-Asiri, an alleged Al-Qaeda bombmaker well known in the counter-terrorism community for his explosive handiwork.
The news came as it was discovered that one of two intercepted parcel bombs sent
from Yemen travelled on a passenger plane, a Qatar Airways source said on Sunday
The airline said a package containing explosives was flown from Sanaa to Doha, then on to Dubai, on one of its aircraft, which the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said was a passenger plane.
Wanted man
Asiri is wanted for making the device worn by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, whose crude bomb sewn into his underwear failed to bring down a packed transatlantic jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
Considered the chief bombmaker for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the 28-year-old Saudi national is thought to be in regular contact with radical Yemeni-US cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a key terror suspect.
The woman arrested earlier in Yemen has been released by authorities.
Asiri is in the spotlight after two bombs containing his trademark explosive PETN, or pentaerythritol trinitrate, were discovered in parcels -- on cargo planes in Dubai and Britain -- addressed to Jewish institutions in Chicago.
Christmas day links
"Al-Asiri's past activities and explosives experience make him a leading suspect," a US counter-terrorism official told AFP.
Asiri had been linked to the Christmas Day bombing because only months before he ruthlessly dispatched his younger brother on a suicide mission with a PETN device apparently hidden underneath his white Saudi robe.
On August 27, Abdullah Hassan Taleh Al-Asiri, pretending to surrender to Saudi authorities, reportedly detonated a bomb inside the Jeddah palace of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi deputy interior minister and intelligence chief.
The more recent parcel bombs differ from Asiri's earlier modus operandi only in that they apparently intended to use circuit boards and cellphone parts rather than a chemical reaction to detonate the PETN.
The alleged Christmas Day bomber, Abdulmutallab, tried to use another chemical and a syringe injector to ignite his device but was thwarted thanks to the intervention of an alert passenger.
The young Nigerian has confessed to investigators that he obtained the materials in Yemen and received training from Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.
Joining the dots
US counter-terrorism chief John Brennan on Sunday joined the dots between the attempted Christmas Day bombing and the package plot as he vowed to "destroy" AQAP.
"I think that the indications are right now based on forensic analysis that the individual responsible for putting these devices together is the same," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
Born in 1981 in Assir province near Saudi Arabia's southern border with Yemen, Asiri is considered an important figure in AQAP's apparatus and features on most-wanted terror lists in both Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
"I assess that Ibrahim Al-Asiri serves as one of AQAP's explosives experts and bombmakers -- a critical position which requires a relatively high level of technical knowledge and experience," US expert Pat Ryan said earlier this year.
"Most terrorist networks have few individuals with the necessary skills to fill this important role, making their kill/capture very valuable in terms of degrading the network's capability."
His resume, according to the Saudi interior ministry, says he left the country at an undisclosed time to join Al-Qaeda after a series of 2003-2006 attacks, including assassination attempts and plots against oil installations.
"Underwent arms training in Yemen on SAM-7, Milan (anti-tank) missiles, RPGs, explosive, toxins," it says.
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Asiri was believed to be hiding somewhere in Yemen.
"I'm sure both the Saudis and Yemenis (and others) are actively looking for him," he told AFP.
