CIA foils new underwear bomb plot

[NickyJ]

Source: Associated Press

The Associated Press has learned the CIA thwarted a plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

Is that really all you got, Al Qaeda?

 

[NickyJ]

I guess they really do have passion in their pants.

 

[Dreadnought]

Wow, how the "mighty" have fallen.

 

[anandus]

So that's what the drone attack in Yemen on the 6th of may was about?

 

[Farm Boy]

Ok, have to ask. Is underwear bomb really a euphemism for butt-bomb or dick-bomb? Or is it really something more like a diaper of explosives?

 

[Ajidica]

To be fair, Osama did not like the Yemeni branch of Al Qaida at all and viewed them as amateurs.

 

[kramerfan86]

Wonder if it would have actually worked or if they would have botched it like their other cutesy bomb attempts like the shoe bomb and underwear bomb 1.0.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Ok, have to ask. Is underwear bomb really a euphemism for butt-bomb or dick-bomb? Or is it really something more like a diaper of explosives?

I'm pretty sure it's a bomb designed to be hidden in your underwear, where it wouldn't be visible or detectable. Not necessarily a diaper though.

 

[Silurian]

The bomb would have been the underwear.
Some people where large underwear to hold in there gut etc.
If a thin layer of explosive was incorporated it may not be spotted in a pat down search and there were no wires to show up on metal detectors.

There are reports that the bomber worked or was recruited by Saudi intelligence and handed over his underwear to the CIA for inspection.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It turns out the CIA really had nothing to do with the disruption of the plot. That it was indeed a Saudi intelligence agent who was responsible. That many members of the US government now want to investigate and find the person who leaked this story. That it would have likely been detected using current screening procedures.

Rare Double Agent Disrupted Bombing Plot, U.S. Says

WASHINGTON — The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday.

In an extraordinary intelligence coup, the double agent left Yemen last month, traveling by way of the United Arab Emirates, and delivered both the innovative bomb designed for his aviation attack and inside information on the group’s leaders, locations, methods and plans to the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi intelligence and allied foreign intelligence agencies.

Officials said the agent, whose identity they would not disclose, works for the Saudi intelligence service, which has cooperated closely with the C.I.A. for several years against the terrorist group in Yemen. He operated in Yemen with the full knowledge of the C.I.A. but not under its direct supervision, the officials said.

After spending weeks at the center of Al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate, the intelligence agent provided critical information that permitted the C.I.A. to direct the drone strike on Sunday that killed Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, the group’s external operations director and a suspect in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, an American destroyer, in Yemen in 2000.

He also handed over the bomb, designed by the group’s top explosives expert to be undetectable at airport security checks, to the F.B.I., which is analyzing its properties at its laboratory at Quantico, Va. The agent is now safe in Saudi Arabia, officials said. The bombing plot was kept secret for weeks by the C.I.A. and other agencies because they feared retaliation against the agent and his family — not, as some commentators have suggested, because the Obama administration wanted to schedule an announcement of the foiled plot, American officials said.

Officials said Tuesday night that the risk to the agent and his relatives had now been “mitigated,” evidently by moving both him and his family to safe locations.

But American intelligence officials were angry about the disclosure of the Qaeda plot, first reported Monday by The Associated Press, which had held the story for several days at the request of the C.I.A. They feared the leak would discourage foreign intelligence services from cooperating with the United States on risky missions in the future, said Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

“We are talking about compromising methods and sources and causing our partners to be leery about working with us,” said Mr. King, who spoke with reporters about the plot on Monday night and Tuesday after he was briefed by counterterrorism officials. Mr. King, who called the bomb plot “one of the most tightly held operations I’ve seen in my years in the House,” said he was told that government officials planned to investigate the source of the original leak. The C.I.A. declined to comment.

A senior American official said the new device was sewn into “custom-fit” underwear and would have been very hard to detect even in a careful pat-down. Unlike the device used in the unsuccessful 2009 attack, this bomb could be detonated in two ways, in case one failed, the official said.

Forensic experts at the F.B.I.’s bomb laboratory are assessing whether the bomb could have evaded screening machines and security measures revamped after the failed 2009 plot. One American official said the bureau’s initial analysis indicated that if updated security protocols designed to detect a wider range of possible threats were properly conducted, the measures “most likely would have detected” the device.

 

[Glassfan]

Something like C-4 Plastic explosives could be custom formed and fitted and probably quite comfortable - until....

 

[anandus]

That it would have likely been detected using current screening procedures.

Of course they'd say that, they'd have to.
Although I doubt anybody believes that

 

[innonimatu]

It turns out the CIA really had nothing to do with the disruption of the plot. That it was indeed a Saudi intelligence agent who was responsible. That many members of the US government now want to investigate and find the person who leaked this story. That it would have likely been detected using current screening procedures.

Rare Double Agent Disrupted Bombing Plot, U.S. Says

Erm... the way these thinks usually go, tomorrow you'll hear that the double agent was the one who came up with the plot in the first place!

 

[Formaldehyde]

Of course they'd say that, they'd have to.
Although I doubt anybody believes that

The authorities never stated anything like that before. They just used all of them as an excuse to come up with even more ludicrous screening methods and prohibitions.

 

[Joecoolyo]

It turns out the CIA really had nothing to do with the disruption of the plot. That it was indeed a Saudi intelligence agent who was responsible. That many members of the US government now want to investigate and find the person who leaked this story. That it would have likely been detected using current screening procedures.

Rare Double Agent Disrupted Bombing Plot, U.S. Says

Actually, it turns out the double agent was a Brit, working for the Saudi intelligence agency, and who turned the bomb into the C.I.A.

The man who foiled a Yemen-based al-Qaeda "underwear bomb" plot is reported to have been a British man of Middle Eastern origin, according to US media.

UK officials declined to comment on the reports, but earlier this week the US said foreign agencies were involved in the operation.

The agent was sent by al-Qaeda to attack a US-bound plane, but left Yemen and gave the device to US intelligence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18029242

What a weird foreign intelligence agency smorgasbord.

 

[Millman]

Now they don't have to sue them to get their pants off.

On a serious note it's no surprise humanity can be a serious threat to itself.