Nothing like a quiet Friday, huh?  As America watched breathlessly for 5 hours, authorities mobilized, tracked down, and investigated suspicious packages delivered from the tiny country of Yemen, sent by a group of Islamic Terrorists who wish to not just pull our chain but wipe us off the map. 

Two packages mailed from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago contained explosive material and represented a “credible terrorist threat,” Obama said Friday afternoon, as he gave a brief statement before the cameras and answered no questions.

These packages came from an increasingly lethal affiliate of al-Qaeda.

Our country’s counterterrorism officials suspect that the packages, which were intercepted in Britain and Dubai, were sent by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who had already been the puppet masters behind Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, who murdered 13 American soldiers at Fort Hood and the failed Underwear Bomber, whose Panty Bomb malfunctioned in an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

Obama would not specify any new security measures that would be taken, nor would he say that the nation’s terrorist alert level had been raised.  But he described the threat as serious and pointed once again to Yemen as the source of a terrorist plot, saying his top terrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, had been in touch with that country’s president. 

By the way, do you remember what this rocket scientist said about Islam, terrorism, and jihad?

The two packages were intercepted at separate locations, one on a UPS plane at East Midlands Airport near Nottingham, England, and the other at a FedEx facility in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Officials gave no details on the kind of explosives found, but they said that they thought that the substance used was PETN, the same explosive used in the Christmas Day plot.

A U.S. official said the search for the devices was triggered by a “tip from a very close ally of the United States.” The tip was relayed to U.S. authorities Thursday and contained “very specific information” about devices in packages being shipped to the United States from Yemen, the official said.

Brennan, in a statement, said the United States was

…grateful to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their assistance in developing information that helped underscore the imminence of the threat emanating from Yemen.

We were looking for packages that were of concern.

He said he briefed Obama before the first package was found in Britain about 3:30 a.m. Friday local time.

U.S. authorities were looking at other packages coming from Yemen, but only the two packages found in Britain and Dubai had been identified as dangerous. Those devices were “intended to do harm,” Brennan said.

Friday’s activity will reinforce the government’s focus on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, an organization in which an American-born cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, plays a leading role.

Twice in the past year and a half, AQAP was able to get a PETN-based bomb past security and in position to strike a major target. The first time, in August 2009, one of the group’s operatives smuggled an explosive hidden in a body cavity into a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s top counterterrorism official. The bomber was killed; his intended target, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, survived.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian trained in Yemen, had a similar device hidden in his underwear during his alleged attempt to take down the Detroit-bound airliner in December.

Both devices are said to have been developed by AQAP’s bomb making expert, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri.

And, as I mentioned before, this insane Imam was the mentor of the mass murderer of Fort Hood, Major Nidal Malik Hassan.