Saudi who's targeted U.S. is bomb-maker suspect

WASHINGTON — Two powerful bombs sent from Yemen appear to have been designed to blow up airliners on their way to the United States and the devices bore the hallmarks of a fugitive Saudi bomb-maker who has repeatedly targeted the U.S. and its allies, senior U.S. officials said Sunday,

A team of U.S. and British investigators was expected to arrive in Yemen's capital, San'a, early this week to assist Yemeni authorities in investigating the attempted bombings, which were disrupted last week after authorities in Britain and the United Arab Emirates, acting on tips from Saudi and U.S. intelligence, intercepted the packages.

Though initial reports indicated they were shipped aboard cargo jets, Qatar Airways said in a statement Sunday that the package intercepted in the U.A.E. was initially transported aboard a passenger jet that went from San'a, the Yemeni capital, to Doha, the Qatari capital, and then on to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

John Brennan, the White House's senior counterterrorism adviser, indicated that investigators were more confident after investigating the devices that the bombs were designed to go off before being delivered.

On Sunday, authorities in Yemen released 23-year-old Hanan Samawi, an engineering student who had been arrested after her name was discovered on one or both of the packages sent from San'a.

A Yemeni official said Sunday she was released because authorities concluded Samawi had not sent the packages.

A Yemen official in Washington, D.C., who asked not to be named, said authorities believed it was a case of stolen identity.

The student's release could be a political embarrassment for President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had announced her arrest in a high-profile news conference apparently designed to show that his government was moving aggressively against al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula.

Hours before the young woman's release, her classmates at San'a University College of Engineering protested the treatment she received from police in her neighborhood in north San'a, the Yemen capital.

U.S. officials said their initial findings provided more evidence that al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, an offshoot of the original group created by Osama bin Laden, is probing for weaknesses in U.S. counterterrorism defenses and that it had evolved into one of the most active terrorist organizations from its stronghold in remote and lawless parts of Yemen.

Forensic analysis of the two U.S.-bound bombs hidden inside computer printers indicated they were constructed by Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, a member of al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula.

He is also believed to have built the devices used in two previous attempted attacks, including a failed effort to blow up a U.S. airliner last December, Brennan said.

The U.S. has halted all cargo and mail shipments from Yemen.