BARBIE BOMB PLOT vs. JET IS SMASHED

THIS BARBIE was a real bombshell. Lebanese officials said they helped foil a plot to bring down a passenger plane that terrorists were planning to blow up with explosives hidden inside a meat grinder and a large Barbie doll. The target, authorities said, was an Emirati passenger plane that was supposed to take off earlier this month from Sydney en route to the United Arab Emirates’ capital, Abu Dhabi. Lebanon’s interiorin minister Nohad Machnouk told reporters that the bombs never made it on the plane because the handbag they were placed in was 15.4 pounds above the weight permitted by the airline. Machnouk said the bombs were sent back to the would-be attacker’s home in Australia. He said the attacker tried to bring two explosives on the plane in case one of them did not work. The second would be detonated by one of four Lebanese-Australian brothers who was supposed to be the suicide attacker. One of the brothers is in custody, Machnouk said. It was not immediately clear how authorities uncovered the plot.