Somali with chemicals arrested
2009-12-31 21:11
Mogadishu - A Somali man tried to board a plane at Mogadishu airport with suspicious liquid, powder and a syringe last month in a similar incident to the failed attack on a US airliner on Christmas Day, Somalia's police chief said on Thursday.
The man, arrested at Mogadishu airport on November 6, was released on December 12 after a court threw out the case for lack of evidence, police chief Ali Mohamed Loyan said.
"The incident in Mogadishu looks like the one on a US plane," Loyan said, adding that "concerned security agencies have opened a file for further investigation".
On Christmas Day, a Nigerian man attempted to bring down a Northwest Airlines jet with explosives stitched into his underwear and which had not been detected as he passed through security at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport.
Loyan said the suspect arrested in Somalia claimed the items he was carrying were for developing photographs and that he was headed to the central town of Galkayo.
"Experts who have been analysing the substances confirmed that they could not be used to explode a plane or bring it down," said Loyan, without elaborating.
He reiterated a call from Somalia's transitional government for US help in "fighting terrorists who are causing security threats around the world".
Somalia is home to the al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab extremists who have sworn to topple the internationally-backed transitional government. The Shebab has imposed strict Islamic law in vast areas of the country under its control.
An al-Qaeda affiliate based in Yemen claimed it was behind the botched Christmas Day plot.