Updated on
Summary
A suspected bomb was found on Friday in Britain on board a cargo plane headed to the United States, where authorities were investigating other cargo flights for potentially suspicious items in New York, Philadelphia and other cities. The plane, a United Parcel Service (UPS.N) flight that stopped in Britain while traveling to Chicago from Yemen, was carrying an ink toner cartridge converted into a bomb. An FBI official told that initial tests in Britain revealed no explosives. British police said the plane carrying the suspicious package was being checked at a distribution center at East Midlands Airport, some 160 miles (260 km) north of London. The United States has stepped up its training, intelligence and military aid to Yemen after a failed plot to blow up a U.S. passenger plane on Christmas Day 2009, for which the Yemeni wing of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility. UPS said two of its other planes were being checked in Philadelphia, as well as another that landed in Newark, New Jersey. Local media reported cargo planes also had been stopped for investigation in Portland, Maine, and at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
