Yemeni security forces have arrested a woman suspected of sending two allegedly al-Qaeda linked parcel bombs.
The woman is a medical student in her 20s at Sanaa University and she was arrested with her mother in a neighbourhood in the outskirts of Sanaa.
Yemeni security services found the girl's mobile phone number on the parcels' receipts.
Earlier, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said security forces had surrounded the house where the woman was staying.
Two suspected al-Qaeda parcel bombs destined for the US and sent from Sanaa were intercepted in Dubai and Britain yesterday.
Civil aviation chiefs in France had said that they had suspended air freight from Yemen in the wake of the interception.
Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron also said that they had suspended freight from Yemen.
The British Home Secretary, Theresa May, has said the device found on a plane at East Midlands Airport was viable and could have exploded on board an aircraft.
Earlier, the US President said that the discovery of two suspicious packages on cargo planes bound for the US is being treated as a credible terrorist threat.
President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser told Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh that the US 'stands ready' to aid his government in the fight against al-Qaeda's affiliate there in the wake of a failed bomb plot that originated in Yemen.
Initial examinations of the packages have shown that they contained explosive materials.
One of the packages was found on a United Parcel Service cargo plane which arrived at East Midlands Airport in Britain from Yemen and the other was discovered at a FedEx Corp facility in Dubai following a tip-off from the authorities in Saudi Arabia.
They were addressed to two Jewish places of worship in Chicago.
President Obama said security would be increased for air travel for as long as necessary.
US officials said they were searching for more packages that could have come from Yemen.
UPS and FedEx, the world's largest cargo airline, said they were halting shipments from Yemen. UPS planes were searched and then cleared in New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Police in Dubai have confirmed that the parcel intercepted there contained a bomb hidden in a printer.
The parcel contained explosive pentaerythritol trinitrate (PETN) in a printer and cartridge, police said.
PETN is the material used in a failed plot to bomb an airline over the US in December 2009.
‘The parcel was prepared in a professional way where a closed electrical circuit was connected to a mobile phone SIM card hidden inside the printer,’ the police said in a statement.
‘This tactic carries the hallmarks of methods used previously by terrorist organisations such as al- Qaeda.’
