Explosives discovered on airliner bound for France

Explosives similar to those used by the alleged "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid have been discovered hidden in a passenger seat in a Moroccan aircraft in France.

Sniffer dogs found a small bottle containing 100g of explosives – said to be pentrite, or Semtex containing pentrite – aboard a Royal Moroccan Airlines Boeing 737 after a charter flight from Marrakesh to Metz.

Since no fuse was found, investigators believe the discovery may have interrupted a plot to destroy the aircraft on its return flight or during a subsequent internal flight in Morocco. Either way, it is unclear whether the attempted bombing was part of an international terror campaign or linked to the parliamentary elections in Morocco today.

The explosives were found late on Wednesday night. An administrative bungle allowed the plane to return to Morocco at 3am yesterday, four hours behind schedule. French investigators believe that one of the passengers on the return flight may have been carrying a fuse with which to ignite the explosives. But a police request to halt the flight, to allow passengers to be searched and questioned, arrived too late to stop the plane taking off for Marrakesh. French authorities asked Moroccan police to search passengers on arrival but there were no immediate reports that anything suspicious was found.

A routine search by a security guard with a sniffer dog uncovered the explosives after the plane arrived in Metz at 10.30pm on Wednesday night. A small bottle, wrapped in aluminium foil, was found stuffed in an arm-rest between seats 22a and 22b. One source said that the bottle contained pentrite, the explosive found in the shoe of Richard Reid, the Briton who allegedly tried to blow up a transatlantic flight from Paris to Miami on 22 December last year. Another source said the bottle contained a liquid form of Semtex, which contains pentrite. Three and a half ounces, or 100g, of either substance would have been enough to destroy the aircraft in flight.

The passengers who occupied these and nearby seats on the flight from Marrakesh were French tourists, who have been cleared of suspicion for the time being. Investigators believe the explosives may have been put between the seats on an earlier, internal flight. A second person may then have been intending to fuse and detonate the explosives on the return flight yesterday, or during a later flight inside Morocco. News of the discovery of the explosives was passed from one French police unit and jurisdiction to another. By the time it reached the special anti-terror squad in Paris, the aircraft had been allowed to return to Marrakesh.

The elections in Morocco today are part of a tentative opening by the kingdom to democracy but have been criticised as inadequate by opposition groups.

Radical Islamic groups that claim strong support in the universities and poorer districts of the big cities have complained that the elections will bring no change to the power enjoyed by King Mohammed VI and the Makhzen, a network of royal advisers and senior army officers. Moroccan elections have in the past been denounced by human rights groups for being rigged but King Mohammed, 39, has urged authorities "to ensure the transparency of the polls" and diplomats say he is sincere.