Just as mist often cloaks its spiky mountain peaks, Yemen tends to fade from outsiders' view until an alarming event there commands sudden interest. The foiling of al-Qaeda's Halloween plot to sneak two parcel bombs onto aircraft bound for America is just such an attention-grabber. The attackers hid the devices in ink cartridges inside computer printers and sent them by scheduled courier services from the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, addressed to synagogues in Chicago. The plan may have been to explode them en route, perhaps as the plane was landing.
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