Yemen arrests medical student over cargo jet bomb plot
What is known about the packages?
Officials say the packages contained devices consisted of explosives pushed into printer toner cartridges.
Police in Dubai have confirmed that the device seized there contained the powerful PETN explosive.
The device intercepted in the UK was viable and could have blown up an aircraft, said UK Home Secretary Theresa May.
Both Mrs May and the Dubai authorities said the devices bore all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda - an apparent reference to the group's previous use of PETN in other attemped attacks.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was formed in January 2009 by a merger between two regional offshoots of the international Islamist militant network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
It has fast gained a reputation for daring and unusual attacks, being called "the most active operational franchise" of al-Qaeda outside Afghanistan and Pakistan by the White House's counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan.
AQAP was founded by two lower-ranking al-Qaeda members who escaped from a Yemeni jail in 2006. One of them, Nasser Abdul Karim al-Wuhayshi, is a former personal assistant to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
In September 2008, AQAP attacked the US embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, using car bombs and mortars.
Its first operation outside Yemen was in August 2009, when an AQAP member tried to assassinate the Saudi security chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, using PETN inside his body. The prince survived.
BBC - the whole story
What is known about the packages?
Officials say the packages contained devices consisted of explosives pushed into printer toner cartridges.
Police in Dubai have confirmed that the device seized there contained the powerful PETN explosive.
The device intercepted in the UK was viable and could have blown up an aircraft, said UK Home Secretary Theresa May.
Both Mrs May and the Dubai authorities said the devices bore all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda - an apparent reference to the group's previous use of PETN in other attemped attacks.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was formed in January 2009 by a merger between two regional offshoots of the international Islamist militant network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
It has fast gained a reputation for daring and unusual attacks, being called "the most active operational franchise" of al-Qaeda outside Afghanistan and Pakistan by the White House's counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan.
AQAP was founded by two lower-ranking al-Qaeda members who escaped from a Yemeni jail in 2006. One of them, Nasser Abdul Karim al-Wuhayshi, is a former personal assistant to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
In September 2008, AQAP attacked the US embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, using car bombs and mortars.
Its first operation outside Yemen was in August 2009, when an AQAP member tried to assassinate the Saudi security chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, using PETN inside his body. The prince survived.
BBC - the whole story
