2 Arrested After Boarding United Flight With Mock Bomb

(Newser) – Dutch police are questioning two Yemeni nationals suspected of carrying out a "dry run" for a terrorist attack. The men were held after arriving in Amsterdam on a United Airlines flight that departed from Chicago. Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi was first stopped as he boarded a flight from Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago, ABC reports. US authorities found a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cell phones taped together, several watches taped together, a box cutter, and three large knives in his luggage, but cleared him for the flight.

Once in Chicago, he was joined by Hezem al Murisi, but officials became more suspicious after learning that, though Soofi was headed to Amsterdam, he had checked his bags onto a flight to Yemen via Dubai and Washington, DC, that he did not board himself. Their plane was ordered back to the gate and the luggage removed; the two then flew to Amsterdam, where Dutch officials say the men were detained at the request of American authorities and charged with "preparation of a terrorist attack."