If you have been to an airport recently within the past 5 years, you will agree with me that security is very strict on what items you can bring on the plane with you. The items one is allowed to bring has been limited, you can't bring tweezers, a plastic knife, toothpaste or shampoos need to be in a container no bigger than 3 oz. These limitations have been taken into action after the events of September 11th, in hopes to prevent any more terrorists attacks. Seems like a full proof system doesn't it? Well, even with this system in action, packages with explosives were on an American airplane en route to the United States. These explosives were in packaged form and addressed to Chicago-area synagogues, and contained PETN, which is an industrial explosive. The fact that these explosives made it onto airplanes showed that nearly a decade wince the events of September 11th, terrorists continue to find security vulnerabilities, and somehow make it successfully past this intense security system.
The Record Journal's article, "Yemeni woman arrested, al-Qaida bomber eyed in plot" followed up on this story and provided details on this plot. A Yemeni woman was arrested on suspicion of mailing these packages because her name was on the return address. This young woman was a medical student, and she along with her mother were detained for questioning regarding this matter. The packages were located on airplanes in England and the United Arab Emirates. Primes Minister David Cameron of England said he believes the explosive device found in England was, "intended to detonate aboard the plane." Other officials said, "it's unclear whether the bombs were wired to cell phones, timers and power supplies, and were intented to be detonated remotely while the planes were in the air, or when the packages were halfway around the world in the U.S."(Record Journal) The suspected bomb maker behind this attack is assumed to be the same maker behind the Christmas Day attack, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri has been kept a close eye on by the United States and are hoping to find him to detain him. The packages' destinations were to synangogues in Chicago, which has about 100 members, and serves Jews in the gay community and their families. It is unknown at the moment the reasoning behind this specific synogogue and if there were any potential targets specifically.
How did the United States discover these bombs in the packages? Thanks to intelligence passed from Saudi Arabia, they had been monitoring actions from terrorists groups, and passed this tip along to the United States, which then discovered the bombs.
The U.S. has been on the lookout for terrorists plots, "having received indnications that the Yemeni-based al-Qaida faction was interested in exploring an operation involving cargo planes, said a U.S. counterterrorism official on the matter. (Record Journal) As a results of this incident, the U.S. has temporarily banned all incoming cargo and mail from Yemen. This failed attack should serve as a "wake up call" that the United States needs to increase security on cargo planes and be more alert to bomb threats associated with terrorism, especially from Yemen's al-Qaida branch which is the most active of the terrorist group's affiliates. While the U.S. is trying to build relationships with other countries, such as Yemen, it is difficult to maintain any trustworthy relationship because of the numerous amount of terrorist attacks. Maybe, the U.S. is abiding by the saying, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." I appreciate the fact that other countries have the U.S.'s back in a sense, by keeping an eye out for terrorism, and attempted to hault any harm done to the U.S. Saudi Arabia is not viewed by the U.S. in a highly respected manner, but hopefully the fact that they provided an essential tip, which prevented precious lives from being taken, can somewhat put them in a better position in the minds of people here in the United States.
This event relates to Chapter 12 in Babbie because it discussed evaluation research which is, "research undertaken for the purose of determinng the impact of some social intervention, such as a program aimed at solving a social problem." (Babbie 390) An evaluative research program that can be conducted relating to this event of the bomb threat is to create and invoke a security plan for cargo planes and see the results produced by this security plan. Is it successful or not in finding bombs and explosives before allowing entrance on an aircraft? This evaluative process can prove to be helpful in the war against terrorism.
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