Bombs Were Designed to Destroy Planes

The two bombs found inside the cargo packages headed toward the U.S. were designed to blow up the planes carrying them, the president’s chief counterterrorism adviser said Sunday. “We’re looking at the potential that they would have been detonated en route to those synagogues aboard the aircraft as well as at the destinations,” said John Brennan in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation. “But at this point we, I think, would agree with the British that it looks as though they were designed to be detonated in flight.” Brennan previously disagreed with the British assessment that the two bombs shipped inside computer printers from Yemen and intercepted Friday in Britain and Dubai were meant to blow up the planes they were on, as opposed to two Jewish synagogues in Chicago, where the explosive packages were addressed. The top leadership of al Qaeda, including the American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, may be behind the attempted attacks, according to U.S. officials.