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Authorities intercepted all parcels before they were delivered to their targets. None of the bombs exploded and no one was injured.
Authorities intercepted at least 10 packages. They were sent to:
Democratic Congressman Maxine Waters: Two suspicious packages: one intercepted in a congressional mail filtering facility in Maryland, and the other found in a postal facility in Los Angeles.
John Brennan: A "real explosive device" that was sent to him and delivered by mail to CNN's offices at Time Warner Center in New York.
Vice President Joe Biden: Two parcels found at Delaware post offices.
Actor Robert De Niro: A suspicious package received in a non-residential building in New York and sent to it shows similarities to other packages of homemade bombs.
Where are they from?
FBI deputy director William Sweeney did not confirm the origin of the packages on Thursday, despite reports that investigators thought some were coming from Florida.
Several of the packages have been transiting through a US mail center located in Opa-locka, Florida, two law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said.
"Some were obviously in the postal system," said Sweeney. "I'll leave it there."
The Miami-Dade Police Department tweeted that its anti-bomb team and K-9 unit were providing assistance to federal partners at the USPS Opa-locka mail center.
"This assistance is a precautionary measure," he said. "We can not provide additional information at this time due to the active nature of this federal investigation."
Did the packages have similarities?
The guns sent to Soros, Brennan, and senior Democratic officials seemed like homemade bombs, said Bryan Paarmann, the FBI special agent for the Counter-Terrorism Division in New York.
A first examination shows that they are rudimentary but functional and have a similar construction. At least one projectile contained projectiles, including shards of glass, a CNN enforcement official said.
The packages were in kraft paper envelopes with bubble wrap inside, the FBI said, and each package contained six stamps of the American Forever flag. The devices had suspicious packaging, and at least one had a timer that could be purchased online for a few dollars and had to be easily detected when it was sent or delivered.
Were homemade bombs designed to explode?
The investigators thought that the presence of pyrotechnic powder could explode, but it appeared that the packages had been handled and moved in the postal system without explosion.
According to the x-ray images of one of the gears, it would appear that there are hazardous materials, said Anthony May, retired investigator on explosives for ATF, at Brooke Baldwin , from CNN. But it also seemed to lack a crucial component for an explosive device in working order.
"What I do not see, is enough means to initiate this device, whether by design, by accident, I do not see it," he said. "If I do it by my will, (if) it is designed this way, the motivation of the individual was simply to spread the fear, to infuse the fear."
Where are the packages now?
The devices sent to Clinton, De Niro, Obama, CNN's offices, and the East Coast Waters office are either with the FBI or directed to the agency's Quantico lab. A controlled detonation was carried out for the device sent to Soros, while the one sent by mail to the Waters office on the west coast was made safe by a demining team.
We do not know where the others are.
A suspicious white powder found in an envelope with the device sent to Brennan and CNN was tested and turned out not to be coal or other known agents, said a source. Additional tests will be done in the next few days.
Dakin Andone and Hollie Silverman from CNN contributed to this report.
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