Freight stopped from Yemen after bomb scare - Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government said on Sunday that it, Britain, France and the United States had stopped all air freight from Yemen after the discovery of two bombs found in packages addressed to synagogues in America.

"The German government has ordered a stop to freight to Germany from Yemen until further notice," Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told German broadcaster MDR. "This is a joint action with the United States, Great Britain and France."

Yemeni forces on Saturday arrested a woman believed to be involved in sending explosive packages from Yemen bound for the United States that sparked a global security alert.

Germany's federal crime office (BKA) said it had delivered the decisive tip to British authorities about the explosive parcel intercepted in Britain early on Friday, which was trans-shipped via Cologne-Bonn airport.

The other package was intercepted in Dubai.

De Maiziere said the BKA had acted after Saudi intelligence services told Germany about a suspect U.S.-bound package.

"What exactly they contained and what damage could have been done is still being looked into," he said. "Similar packages were evidently found in Dubai, so we're assuming this was a coordinated undertaking on a large scale."

De Maiziere added an investigation would be made into whether there were gaps in the policing of air freight security.

A spokeswoman for the BKA said by the time Germany was informed about the package it was too late to intervene locally.

"It was already on the way to Britain," she said. "We managed to inform our partners in London so that they were able to look specifically for the package and find it."

Asked how the suspect parcel had remained undetected on German soil, industry sources told Reuters that packages that had already passed through security were not necessarily subjected to further checks while in transit.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; editing by Myra MacDonald)