<p>A item was detected around 4:30 pm, and an area around a cargo container on an airfield was evacuated, said Dulles International Airport spokesman Robert Yingling.<br /><br />The evacuation area's perimeter included "a few" gates at concourse B of the facility, the largest international airport near the US capital, the spokesman said. Those gates were closed for four hours but then reopened, Yingling said.<br /><br />The Virginia state police Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit declared an all-clear at 8:30 pm yesterday, he said.<br /><br />"The boxes on the cargo pallet were found to have nothing harmful or hazardous," Yingling told AFP.<br /><br />During the investigation, the airport remained open and operating, the spokesman said.<br />The security alert came as the United States was on a tense watch ahead of the 10th anniversary of the landmark terror strikes, the worst on US soil.<br /><br />One group of 9/11 hijackers took off from Dulles International, west of the US federal capital of Washington, seized the jet -- American Airlines flight 77 -- and crashed it into the side of the Pentagon.<br /><br />On Saturday, former president George W. Bush joined current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Bush-era defense chief Donald Rumsfeld at a Pentagon wreath-laying ceremony to honor the Pentagon workers and airline passengers who died there.<br /><br />Memories remain raw of the day when Al-Qaeda hijackers slammed two passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York city and a jet into the Pentagon, while a fourth jet crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.</p>
<p>A item was detected around 4:30 pm, and an area around a cargo container on an airfield was evacuated, said Dulles International Airport spokesman Robert Yingling.<br /><br />The evacuation area's perimeter included "a few" gates at concourse B of the facility, the largest international airport near the US capital, the spokesman said. Those gates were closed for four hours but then reopened, Yingling said.<br /><br />The Virginia state police Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit declared an all-clear at 8:30 pm yesterday, he said.<br /><br />"The boxes on the cargo pallet were found to have nothing harmful or hazardous," Yingling told AFP.<br /><br />During the investigation, the airport remained open and operating, the spokesman said.<br />The security alert came as the United States was on a tense watch ahead of the 10th anniversary of the landmark terror strikes, the worst on US soil.<br /><br />One group of 9/11 hijackers took off from Dulles International, west of the US federal capital of Washington, seized the jet -- American Airlines flight 77 -- and crashed it into the side of the Pentagon.<br /><br />On Saturday, former president George W. Bush joined current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Bush-era defense chief Donald Rumsfeld at a Pentagon wreath-laying ceremony to honor the Pentagon workers and airline passengers who died there.<br /><br />Memories remain raw of the day when Al-Qaeda hijackers slammed two passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York city and a jet into the Pentagon, while a fourth jet crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.</p>