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Bomber in al-Qaeda plot was double agent
Can anyone work out what this is all about?
I think the message to Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups is that they are as riddled with holes as Swiss cheese, so they might as well quit and go home to play with their dolls.
THE man ordered by al-Qaeda to blow up a US-bound plane was reportedly a double agent who infiltrated the group and volunteered for the suicide attack, with Saudi intelligence likely playing a key role.

American officials leaked details of the extraordinary intelligence coup two days after the White House announced a plot by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had been successfully thwarted.

The double agent managed to spend weeks with AQAP before handing over information allowing the US to launch a drone strike on Sunday that killed Fahd al-Quso, a senior figure wanted for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, the New York Times and other media reported, citing unnamed US officials.

A senior US official told the Times a bomb for the would-be attack was sewn into "custom fit" underwear that would have been difficult to detect even in a careful pat-down at an airport.

Unlike the device used in the failed December 2009 plot by AQAP to blow up an airliner en route to Detroit, this explosive could have been detonated in two ways, in case one failed, the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

The main charge was a high-grade military explosive that "undoubtedly would have brought down an aircraft," the official said.

ABC News had reported earlier that the latest plot by AQAP was thwarted by a spy who infiltrated the group and took the explosive to Saudi Arabia.

The CIA and other government agencies are declining to comment on the reports.


Posted by: tipper 2012-05-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=344328