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May 13th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
“They embraced him for his family ties, or his perceived family ties. His
passport was certainly also important. But they would have checked this guy
out too and that is where his background came in.” It us unclear
whether the man’s radical roots were genuine and whether he infiltrated AQAP
as a mole or only changed sides later.
But counter-terrorism experts said that constructing a fake history for him
would have been extremely difficult.
AQAP knew that Saudi intelligence agencies, who “handled” the agent,
were trying to infiltrate the group so they would have conducted detailed
checks on the foreign volunteer, helped by contacts in the British Islamic
extremist community.
The man was issued with a more sophisticated version of the underwear bomb
that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian who studied in London, tried to
detonate on a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
But instead the double agent passed the device to his Saudi handlers and it is
now being analysed by the FBI at their headquarters at Quantico, Virginia.
They believe that the bomb carries the signature of AQAP’s master
bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri.
The foiling of the plot was a major coup for British, Saudi and American
intelligence and counter-terror agencies. It comes as US drone attacks have
also been intensified on al-Qaeda positions in Yemen, killing several
leading figures.
But the leaking of information about the operation from US and Saudi sources
is seen as a significant own-goal. It has exasperated MI5 and MI6, which
believe their operations have been compromised, and angered former US
intelligence agents, who believe that some officials at the Obama
administration were seeking to make political capital.
In response to the furore, Leon Panetta, the defence secretary, has ordered
James Clapper, the country’s Director of National Intelligence, to head an
investigation into the leaks.
And experts on AQAP told The Sunday Telegraph that, unless there are
other breakthroughs, this would only be a temporary setback for the faction,
which now controls swathes of safe haven territory in the lawless country.
Mr Asiri is understood to have passed along his expertise to several
lieutenants at a “school for bombers” and the group is also
believed to have other would-be suicide bombers ready for missions.
“AQAP have known since 2009 that the Saudis were very actively trying to
penetrate their ranks and they have adjusted operational security to deal
with this,” said Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen scholar at Princeton’s
Woodrow Wilson School.
“Asiri is thought to have constructed the device, but he apparently never
met the double agent. The discovery of a mole in their ranks will certainly
have caused AQAP some uncertainty, but that is only the silver lining of a
very dark cloud.” He said that the US was too focused on targeting
AQAP’s leaders rather than tackling the organisation, and noted that
Washington had believed that the killing of American-born cleric Anwar
al-Awlaki would weaken AQAP.
“The fact is that three years ago, AQAP had maybe 200-300 members and
controlled no territory, while now it has more than 1,000 members by US
estimates and controls significant territory, Mr Johnsen said.
“The role of individuals in the organisation has been over-inflated. All
that has happened so far is that terrorists whose names we didn’t previously
know have replaced the ones we have killed.” Katherine Zimmerman, the
AQAP specialist at the Critical Threats Project at the influential American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, said that the growth of AQAP safe havens
was a crucial development.
“AQAP’s leadership is only partially dismantled and it has significant
safe havens in Yemen,” she said. “The United States is caught in a
vicious circle: We have been somewhat successful in targeting AQAP’s
leadership. But AQAP is breeding leaders faster than we can kill them. And
we can’t kill them faster as long as they have safe havens. So the key is on
the ground in Yemen, where we have little presence, little leverage, and
unreliable allies. So expect the attempted attacks to continue.” But
the foiling of the plot and drone attacks are also expected to disrupt some
AQAP operations and cause turmoil within the group in the short-term at
least.
Michael Hayden, a former Central Intelligence Agency director, predicted that
the ruse will prompt the terrorists to turn on each other. Foreign
operatives, including the Saudis who make up a significant proportion of its
ranks, will come under a particular shadow.
He told The Wall Street Journal: “The effect is everyone on the
inside is now looking at everybody else on the inside and you’re creating
suspicions inside the network.”
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