AQAP Claims Responsibility for September UPS Crash

Stratfor

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on Nov. 5 claimed responsibility both for the parcel bomb plot uncovered Oct. 29 and for the crash of a UPS aircraft outside Dubai on Sept. 3. The Yemen-based militant group released the message via its official media wing, al-Malahim, to a number of jihadist websites. In it, the group accused U.S. President Barack Obama of concealing the cause of the Sept. 3 crash because “he wants to hide the failure in security, especially since this was done before the U.S. midterm elections,” indicating the crash was intended to affect the Nov. 2 elections in the United States. The statement went on to criticize the Saudis, who provided intelligence to UAE and Western authorities concerning the packages, saying, “These devices were headed to Jewish Zionist temples, but you betrayed and interfered to protect them.”

AQAP’s claim for the Oct. 28-29 parcel bomb plot comes as no surprise; the group was the top suspect in the attempted attacks. However, the group’s claim for the Sept. 3 crash supports STRATFOR’s theory that the incident may have been a proof-of-concept mission kept quiet in the group in order to be later replicated on a larger scale in late October. UAE investigators said Nov. 1 that there was no sign that an explosion caused that crash, but an exact cause has not been determined.

While this may simply be an opportunistic attempt on the part of AQAP to claim credit for an accidental crash, there are a number of facts that support the theory that the events were related:

* Both incidents involved UPS airliners.
* In both incidents, flights originated out of Dubai (though FedEx was the Dubai target in the Oct. 29 incident)
* Some reports from the Sept. 3 incident said the crew smelled smoke shortly after takeoff, prompting them to return to Dubai International Airport. This indicates the device may have only partially detonated, causing a fire in the cargo deck that could have spread to affect critical systems. Given what we know about the devices used in the parcel bomb plot, they could have produced the same effect.
* While al Qaeda prime has been known to falsely claim responsibility for accidents in the past, AQAP tends to only make legitimate claims. The timing of the statement matches past lag time between attack and claim.

If AQAP was indeed behind the Sept. 3 crash, it would mean they at one point possessed the ability to deploy a viable device capable of bringing down an airliner but that a lapse in operational security betrayed their Oct. 28-29 mission, allowing authorities to disrupt it. AQAP’s statement indicates the packages were targeting the Jewish centers in Chicago. This goes against our assessment that the devices’ design indicated they were more likely to be targeting the actual aircraft, which the Sept. 3 incident appeared to have done if it was indeed an attack.

Pending more information on the ongoing investigation into the crash of UPS Flight 6 from Dubai, AQAP’s claim cannot be confirmed. But today’s claim lends more credence to the theory that the Sept. 3 UPS crash was a proof-of-concept mission.