terrorism experts have said that US praise for the Kingdom's role in uncovering the suspicious packages found in flights from Yemen to the United States strongly reflects the country's openness to working with other nations in the fight against terrorism. “Its hand is clearly extended to cooperate with others in frustrating and foiling the plots of terrorists around the world,” Mustafa Al-'Ani, head of the Anti-terrorism Department at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, said Saturday. “It also shows the need to set up the International Center for Combating Terrorism.” King Abdullah first proposed the center at the International Counter-Terrorism Conference held in Riyadh in 2005. Speaking to Okaz/Saudi Gazette, Al-'Ani said that opening an international center would cut time and effort through the instant exchange and transfer of information and help prevent incidents, as occurred Friday when the two aircraft packages destined for the US were discovered at East Midlands Airport, UK, and Dubai Airport. “It was information provided by Saudi Arabia that led to the packages being reexamined after passing security checks, information reflecting the Kingdom's high-level capabilities in intelligence work and gathering and corroborating information as early as possible,” he said. John Brennan, Assistant to US President Barack Obama and Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, announced the White House's gratitude Friday for the Kingdom's “help in obtaining information related to the threat that originated from Yemen”. According to Al-'Ani, the PETN explosive material in the packages was the same as that found on Omar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the so-called “Christmas Bomber”, who departed from Yemen in his failed attempt to bring down an airliner last year. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula later claimed responsibility for plot. PETN has also been used in other Al-Qaeda-linked plans, such as “shoe bomber” Richard Reid's 2001 attempted attack and, according to Saudi officials, Abdullah Asiri's failed assassination attempt on Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, in Jeddah on Aug. 2009. An official at the Ministry of Interior reiterated that similar intelligence work to that which alerted authorities to Friday's attempted attacks has led to over 220 acts of terrorism by Al-Qaeda being foiled in the last seven years.
