Chicago’s FBI chief on Monday said that 10 years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on America, al-Qaida is still “obsessed with airplanes.”

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rob Grant disclosed for the first time that Chicago investigators are handling an international terror probe into who planted mail bombs on overseas flights bound for Chicago last year.

“They were never intended to reach their destination,” Grant said of the foiled mail bomb plot.

“The person who built that bomb still remains at liberty, somewhere in Yemen,” Grant said during an appearance before the Niagara Foundation in Chicago. “He has been hunted for a long time, but he is a very, very skilled bomb-maker.”

In October 2010, explosives hidden in printer cartridges were pulled off of airplanes in England and the United Arab Emirates after intelligence officials were tipped off that the packages were on board.

The packages, sent from Yemen, were addressed to former Chicago area synagogues bearing the names of historical figures as a way to “stick it in their eyes” if the blown up remnants were found, Grant said. President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser has called the devices “very sophisticated,” and officials believe the Yemeni faction of al-Qaida is behind the plot.

It was foiled after information came in from a “foreign intelligence source, a human,” who warned that there were bombs on the two planes, Grant said.

Both planes were grounded immediately, he said.

But the incident caused a scare at the time that spread worldwide and caused subsequent searches of cargo planes and some passenger flights in East Coast airports. A woman accused of mailing the packages was later arrested but authorities warned the ring leaders were still at large.

Last year, investigators said they found links between the Chicago-bound devices and the explosive intended for use by the so-called “underwear bomber” in Detroit.

“Al-Qaida has been obsessed with airplanes, they continue to be obsessed with airplanes,” Grant said. “They want to use airplanes to kill people. … It continues to be a desire on their part to bring a plane down.”

Their interest in planes is partly economic, he said.

The effort to blow up both planes last year cost about $5,000.

“They watch the world respond,” he said. “They spent a few thousand, and then we spend millions.”

(Source: Chicago Sun-Times)