BBC News with John Jason

President Obama said the suspicious packages that triggered security alerts in the United States, Britain and Dubai did apparently contain explosive material. The president told a news conference the packages came from Yemen on freight planes bound for the US and were addressed to Jewish places of worship in Chicago. The US counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said they'd now been made inert and were no longer dangerous. President Obama said the US would work closely with Yemen to disrupt extremist activities.

"We will continue to strengthen our cooperation with the Yemeni government to disrupt plotting by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and to destroy this al-Qaeda affiliate. We will also continue our efforts to strengthen a more stable, secure and prosperous Yemen so that terrorist groups do not have the time and space they need to plan attacks from within its borders."