24th November, 2010
Two packages destined for Nigeria have caused security scare in Boston, United States after they were discovered by a sniffer dog.
Security officials investigated the package that drew attention from an explosive-sniffing Transportation Security Administration dog in Boston Tuesday afternoon.
Officials said they received notification about 2 p.m. that the TSA dog had paused at a duffel bag containing two packages in a cargo facility in “a remote location” at Boston’s Logan Airport. The packages were marked for Nigeria and one was considered suspicious.
About a half-hour later, port officials gave the “all clear.”
“Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to clear the facility, evacuate the terminal, the cargo facility,†Massport spokeswoman Danny Levy said.
Levy, who emphasized that the one package appeared to be “low-suspicion,†said a freight forwarder had sent the packages to be shipped to Nigeria, and officials were working to track the source.
Massport officials said a state police bomb squad was dispatched to examine the package. An x-ray revealed “a low-level threat,” they said.
“Further examination revealed the contents were harmless,” according to a formal statement issued by Massport.
TSA officials and other authorities have been on the alert for package bombs and threats to air travel during the holiday season in the wake of the October 29 discovery of air-cargo parcels containing explosives that originated in Yemen.
TSA chief John Pistole noted on Monday that the latest version of an English-language magazine from the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula features information about making mail bombs. The group has claimed responsibility for the October package-bomb plot.
The magazine, released last weekend, said that the bomb plot cost only $4,200 and took less than four months to organize. The publication declared that the plot was part of a shift toward carrying out small-scale attacks, a “strategy of a thousand cuts” intended to damage American interests and “bleed the enemy to death.” One article stated that the objective of the attack “was not to cause maximum casualties but to cause maximum losses to the American economy” by targeting the multibillion-dollar cargo industry.
