Updated on
Summary
Yemen on Sunday freed a woman held on suspicion of involvement in a plot to send parcel bombs on US-bound planes after her arrest sparked protests by her fellow students.A family member and a government official told that the woman, believed to be in her 20s, had been released. Another woman had used her name and ID. Authorities are looking for that woman, the government official said. Governments, airlines and aviation authorities around the world are reviewing security after two parcel bombs sent from Yemen were intercepted on planes in Dubai and Britain on Friday. The bombs had all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda, US officials say. Yemeni police arrested the woman after tracing her through a telephone number she had left with a cargo company. Dozens of students had staged a sit-in in the courtyard of Sanaa University's engineering faculty calling for her release. That attack, as well as another attempt on a US-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009, involved the use of pentaerythritol trinitrate (PETN), a highly potent explosive that appears to be the weapon of choice of Al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). At least one of the two US-bound devices sent from Yemen addressed to synagogues in Chicago employed PETN, the US official said. Governments around the world are now scrambling to reassess security and close any loopholes that allowed the bombs through.
