Al-Qaida's Yemen underwear bomber was a CIA man

Herald Sun

UPDATE: THE CIA had al-Qaida fooled from the beginning. Last month, US intelligence learned that al-Qaida's Yemen branch hoped to launch a spectacular attack using a new, nearly undetectable bomb aboard an airliner bound for America, officials say.

But the man the terrorists were counting on to carry out the attack was actually working for the CIA and Saudi intelligence, US and Yemeni officials told The Associated Press.
The dramatic sting operation thwarted the attack before it had a chance to succeed.
It was the latest misfire for al-Qaida, which has repeatedly come close to detonating a bomb aboard an airliner.
For the United States it was a victory that delivered the bomb intact to US intelligence.
The co-operation of the would-be bomber was first reported on Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.
The FBI is still analysing the explosive, which was intended to be concealed in a passenger's underwear.
Officials said it was an upgrade over the bomb that failed to detonate on board an airplane over Detroit in 2009.
This new bomb contained no metal and used a chemical that was to be a detonator in a nearly successful 2010 plot to attack cargo planes, officials said.
Security procedures at US airports have remained unchanged, a reflection of both the US confidence in its security systems and recognition that the government can't realistically expect travellers to endure much more.
While airline checks in the United States mean passing through an onerous, sometimes embarrassing series of pat-downs and body scans, procedures overseas can be a mixed bag.
The US cannot force other countries to permanently adopt the expensive and intrusive measures.
Officials believe that body scanners probably would have detected this latest attempt by al-Qaida to bring down a jetliner.
Such scanners allow screeners to see objects hidden beneath a passenger's clothes.
But while scanners are in place in airports in the US, their use is scattershot overseas.
Even in security-conscious Europe, the European Union has not required full-body imaging machines for all airports, though a number of major airports in Paris, London, Frankfurt and elsewhere use them.
All passengers on US-bound flights are checked against terrorist watch lists and law enforcement databases.
Al-Qaida has repeatedly tried to take advantage of overseas gaps in airport security.
The 2009 bomb attempt originated in Amsterdam, where the bomber did not receive a full-body scan.
And in 2010, terrorists smuggled bombs onto cargo jets, which receive less scrutiny than passenger planes.
In both those instances, the bombs were made by al-Qaida's master bomb maker in Yemen, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri.
Officials believe this latest bomb was the handiwork of al-Asiri or one of his students.