Man Tried to Bring Explosives Aboard Somali Flight Last Month

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More than a month before a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, another man boarded a flight in the Somali capital of Mogadishu with similar explosives, CNN reports. The Daallo Airlines plane was bound for the Somali city of Hargeisa, then Djibouti, in Ethiopia, and finally Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

The suspect was carrying a concealed plastic bag containing ammonium nitrate and concentrated sulfuric acid in a plastic bottle, according to Wafula Waminyinyi, a special representative at the African Union Mission for Somalia. Waminyinyi said Abdi Hassan Abdi also had an unidentified liquid in a syringe. Somali officials believe the chemicals could have been combined to cause an explosion.

In the Detroit incident, which took place Christmas Day on a flight from Amsterdam, suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab reportedly carried pentaerythritol tetranitrate, an explosive also known as PETN. It had been sewn into his underwear and the amount is believed sufficient to have blown a hole in the aircraft. His attempt to ignite the substance failed when crew members and passengers intervened after seeing smoke.

In the Nov. 13 incident in Somalia, Abdi was arrested after officials searched him and discovered the chemicals. He had drawn suspicion because he was the last person to board the flight, Waminyinyi said. Abdi is believed to still be in police custody. Further details were not immediately available, CNN said.

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