President Obama said Friday that packages mailed from Yemen and intercepted in the last 24 hours contained explosive material and represented a "credible terrorist threat."
The packages, mailed via UPS and FedEx, were addressed to two places of Jewish worship in Chicago, the president said.
Obama, speaking four days before the midterm elections, did not specify any new security measures that would be taken or say that the nation's terrorist alert level had been raised. But he described the threat as serious, and pointed once again to Yemen as the source, saying his top terrorism adviser, John Brennan, had been in touch with that country's president.
The two packages were intercepted at different locations, one on a UPS plane at the East Midlands airport near Nottingham, England, and the other at a FedEx facility in Dubai. Officials provided no detail on the kind of explosives found.
U.S. counterterrorism officials believe the foiled attack may have been orchestrated by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, which has been behind a series of recent attempts to strike the United States.
"They're on the short list," one official said of the group, which is known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said U.S. authorities were scrutinizing other packages coming from Yemen, but only two have so far been identified as dangerous.
Those devices were "intended to do harm," Brennan said.
Hmmm. It turns out that Republicans aren't the only ones who can keep you safe from the Terrorists.
George Bush was wrong...or lying...
...again.
