Al-Qaeda introduces new improved underwear bomb from Yemen

The latest bomb plot and underwear bomber were foiled by the ever-vigilant CIA in a sting in Yemen within the last few weeks. Fortunately, no targets or plane tickets had been purchased by the time the plot was foiled.

The New York Times reported, in Rare Double Agent Disrupted Bombing Plot, U.S. Says, “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.”

Okay, so let’s get this straight. The so-called bomber was really a double agent for Saudi Arabia, working closely with the C.I.A. for the past months on this op but “not under direct supervision” whatever that means. Nevertheless the double agent provided strategic information that helped the C.I.A. drone bomb a direct strike killing the “group’s external operations director, Fahd Mohammed al-Quso,” also a suspect in the USS Cole bombing in Yemen in 2000, for which there was a $5 million reward. It was like killing two birds with one drone.

As to Al-Qaeda, wherever it operates, anyone who knows or should know, Al-Qaeda is the brand name for terror created for America and the world by the C.I.A. In fact, Al-Qaeda was set up, bought, paid for, trained and armed, by the agency to form the Mujahadeen to fight a jihad, holy war, against Russia in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Included in the personnel was one disaffected young man from Ryad in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden, who led various combat events. Thus, on his computer was a file named Al-Qaeda, the base, which listed his favorite fellow fighters. That’s where the group’s name came from.

As to the new improved underwear bomb itself, it is said by the Times and other sources to have been designed and built by the “group’s skilled bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri,” who also “designed the explosives used in the failed bombing attempt on an airliner over Detroit on December 25, 20091 and also packed into printer cartridges on cargo planes in October 2010.” As you may remember, the would-be suicide bomber then was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Fortunately, the bomb did not go off and produced some fire and a lot of smoke, which passengers and crew put out. This is probably because the bomb did not have a real blasting cap to detonate the C-4 explosive used in it. Umar also had some help from a big American-looking man, suavely dressed, who bucked the rules for Umar at the Schipol Amsterdam airport, walking him past passport review, to get on the flight to Detroit, something that could happen only if an intelligence agency had approved it. So their hand is visible again.

In this case, the custom-fitting underwear is said to have carried the newly implanted chemical “lead azide” as its detonator. As the Times said, “The main charge was a high-grade military explosive that undoubtedly brought down an aircraft.” Al-Asiri is credited with that little touch that could mean so much, to make a new and improved underwear bomb, with no detectable parts and which could be marketed widely to those who wish us ill, including our intelligence agencies, to keep the War on Terror, the fear, the endless killing and taking over of nations going ad infinitum.

All the standard players appeared to praise the intel groups, mostly their bosses: Defense Secretary Larry Panetta said, “What this incident makes clear is this country has to continue to remain vigilant against those who would seek to attack this country. And we will do everything necessary to keep America safe.” And put some money in the pockets of ourselves and our little helpers. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “They keep trying to devise more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people.” As we do to them. And Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security chief said, “The device was always under control and that no one in the United States was ever at risk because we did have control.” So what’s the problem here?

Even Islamophobic fear-monger, Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee of the US House of Representatives, was told by someone, “We don’t have to worry about ‘him,’ [the double agent posing as a real bomber] anymore.” In fact, “the risk to the agent and his relatives had now been ‘mitigated,’ evidently by moving both him and his family to safe locations.” So then who is that we see in photos with arms tied behind his back near an airplane? Actually, “The agent arranged instead to deliver the device to U.S. and other intelligence authorities waiting outside of Yemen,” the L.A. Times reported. As to this event going live, it is simply a hoax, cooked up by Arabian and C.I.A. intelligence groups. Everybody’s safe. Bases loaded for a grand slam run in deception, another to add to the shoe bomber, underwear bomber, and car bomber slam.

Now, why would they do a thing like this, aside from scaring the pants off the unannointed? Well the Times tells us, “Over the past eight months, American counterterrorism officials have monitored with growing alarm a rising number of electronic intercepts and tips from informants that suggest Al-Qaeda’s [read C.I.A.] branch in Yemen has been ramping up plots to attack the United States.” Is that the only reason? The real deal is that the chatter reflects “months of political chaos in Yemen during which the Qaeda branch and its militant allies seized effective control over large areas of the country, giving the terrorist group a broader base from which to plot attacks against both the Yemeni government and the United States.”

So the agency and other Saudi intelligence have Yemen in its grip, destabilizing the government and country, as it did others. By the way, Yemen is right below Saudi Arabia on the map and has its own oil as well, another plus.

Perhaps the West may be planning to lay some additional layers of chaos on Yemen, hopefully not a no-fly zone or NATO visit. Just some extra heat to see the place go up in smoke and to make sure the West and Saudis maintain control, not some Yemeni potentate. In fact, a search turned up this brief but telling article at The Development Searchwire, OIL-RICH NEIGHBORS TO SET UP RECOVERY FUND FOR YEMEN. It reads . . .

“Yemen’s neighbors are paving a road to recovery for the strife-torn country.

“Yemeni Prime Minister Mohammed Basindwa told Reuters Monday (Jan. 16) that Yemen—which needs tens of billions of dollars to rebuild—has received assurances of financial help from Gulf Cooperation Council member countries, including Saudi Arabia. He said the country’s oil-rich neighbors will set up a fund for Yemen sometime in March or April. No figures or a timeline regarding the fund’s disbursement, however, has been set.

“Money from the fund will go directly to approved development projects and will bypass the government [interesting] Basindwa said the government’s role will only be to submit a list of projects the country needs [and then get out of the way].

“They’ll after hold tenders and choose the right companies to implement. We will have nothing to do with choosing the consultants, companies that will carry out such projects . . . We don’t want cash money from that fund going to our Treasury,” he said.” So the government can give the laundry list of needs but has nothing to do with choosing who and how much they will cost.

“Civil unrest and a continuous influx of refugees from the Horn of Africa have placed the poor country in deep humanitarian crisis. Experts noted, however, that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s agreement to step down from power and a successful election in February could encourage donors to provide assistance to Yemen.” So we have a bit of regime change planned or the Al-Qaeda groups keep on destabilizing the country? And then there’s this . . .

“Read more:  UN unveils 2012 funding request for Yemen aid operations.”

Could that be the bottom line? That both Yemen’s rich neighbors (Saudi Arabia) and the C.I.A. keep Yemen trouble-free enough for ease of Saudi oil passage, and use it for the second purpose: making it a hotbed of Al-Qaeda activity planning to target the U.S. for bombings? Only the Shadow knows. And the Shadow is the agency, spreading across the world, above and beyond underwear bombs, new and improved, with no steel parts, plastic and fabricated to fit? We’ll see what the future brings for Yemen. Right now, this tale seems to be at the heart of this latest underwear bomb-threat/op. Meanwhile, hold on to your Fruit of the Looms. And for god’s sake, don’t put anything in them but you.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.