CIA Double Agent Foils al-Qaida Bomb Plot

The announcement of a new terrorist threat averted aboard an American plane is enriched by a particular detail: the movement assigned the suicide job to a militant who was actually collaborating with Washington intelligence — who had delivered the explosive.

The bomb that al-Qaida had crafted to mark the anniversary of the death of bin Laden with a big bang would have been powerful enough to rip apart, in midair, the plane directly over the United States. But the would-be suicide who was to carry out the bloody plan had, in fact, a completely different mission in mind — one financed by the CIA.

Yes, the militant Arab from the Arabian Peninsula’s most active and dangerous faction of Osama’s heirs, and thus al-Qaida, was an informant for U.S. intelligence, chosen to return to strike on American soil 10 years after the horror of September 11. This time the terrorists didn’t want to risk yet another flop by relying, as they did three years ago, on a willing but bumbling underwear-bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The very young Nigerian succeeded in getting through the checkpoints at airports around half the world, from Africa to Europe, despite being on the no-fly list, but then, in the air above Detroit, fortunately he wasn’t able to detonate his underwear-bomb on United Flight 253 on that blessed Christmas day in 2009.

Now the mad engineer of al-Qaida, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, had built a new device, which didn’t contain metal and therefore would have escaped the metal detectors at airports — and it was so small and so well concealed in his underwear as to escape even the groping that the men from airport security reserve for suspect people.

This time, then, the leaders of the terrorists put their trust in a “professional,” a militant Arab whom they could rely on. He was so professional, in fact, that he was working for two masters — a double agent, like the ones in spy novels. His job was to hand over the new, extremely dangerous weapon; instead of buying a ticket to blow himself up over the United States, he went to deliver it directly to the agents of the stars and stripes.

The revelation of the American and Yemeni officials is a blow to al-Qaida’s credibility and another star on Barack Obama’s chest. The U.S. 007s knew about the plan for at least a few weeks. But the delay in the announcement of the narrow escape was specifically due to the necessity of having to provide protection for the double agent and his family. The “CIA kamikaze” is now protected in a top secret location in Saudi Arabia — a detail that brings the number of states involved in the discovery of the plot to three.

According to U.S. agents, this attack is the most dangerous one so far crafted by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been strategically reorganized after the removal of its leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, the imam who — having been born to an Arab family in New Mexico — was the first U.S. citizen killed by order of the CIA, a few days after the elimination of bin Laden.

Al-Qaida’s reorganization is now, however, compromised not only by the discovery of the attack: thanks to the revelations of the doubly secret superagent, the Americans managed, a few days ago, to hit the man who had taken Awlaki’s place, Fahd al-Ahmed Mohammed Quso, with a drone.

A real one-two, then: an extraordinary operation. A double shot of counter terrorism, made possible by a militant Arab who Americans can now rightly consider a hero and who until a few weeks ago prayed with bin Laden’s grandchildren.