Factbox - Recent attempted attacks on the United States

(Reuters) - Governments, airlines and aviation authorities around the world are reviewing security after two parcel bombs sent from Yemen were intercepted on planes in Dubai and Britain last week. U.S. officials say the bombs had all the hallmarks of al Qaeda. A Saudi bombmaker believed to be working with al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing is a key suspect, a U.S. official said on Sunday.

Following are recent attempted attacks on the United States tied to, or believed to have links to, anti-American militant groups like al Qaeda or the Taliban.

October 2010: After U.S. officials received a tip from Saudi Arabia, two packages containing explosive materials destined for Jewish centres in Chicago were intercepted by authorities in England and Dubai. The explosives were tentatively identified as PETN, a strong explosive that has been used in the past by the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP. Two women in Yemen are in custody who are believed to have delivered the packages to the UPS and FedEx offices for shipping.

May 2010: A Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, Faisal Shahzad, drove a sport utility vehicle packed with a crude bomb into the heart of Times Square in New York on a crowded Saturday evening. The bomb failed to go off and was discovered by passersby. He was caught days later as he tried to fly to Dubai. Shahzad admitted to receiving bomb-making training and funding from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced this month to life in a U.S. prison.

December 2010: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, originally from Nigeria, boarded a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day and allegedly tried to detonate a bomb sewn into his underwear. The explosives, PETN, failed to fully detonate and passengers and crew subdued him. Abdulmutallab began cooperating with U.S. authorities. Officials say he told them he had received the bomb and training from AQAP in Yemen. He is facing trial in a U.S. court in 2011, but he suggested during a recent court hearing that he could plead guilty to some of the charges.

November 2010: U.S. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim born in the United States, is accused of killing 13 and injuring 32 during a shooting rampage at the U.S. Army installation in Fort Hood, Texas. U.S. authorities later learned he had been communicating with the Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is an American but left the country soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks and has since encouraged attacks against his homeland. Al-Awlaki is believed to be hiding in Yemen. Hasan is facing trial in a military court.

September 2009: Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born man who is a permanent U.S. resident and was living in Colorado, plotted a suicide bomb attack on the New York subway system. He received training from al Qaeda in the remote Waziristan region of Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan. He drove to New York in preparation for the attack but discarded bomb-making materials after learning he was under surveillance from a local imam. He was later arrested in Colorado and pleaded guilty to the plot in February. His sentencing has been postponed until June 2011 and he has been cooperating with authorities.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by Stacey Joyce)