Thursday, July 11, 2013

Flying Commercial Might Get a Bit More Troubling

We're regaled with horror stories of intrusive security measures that greet the flying public these days.  Things might just be about to get a lot worse.

Welcome the era of the underwear bomb.  That's right, high-explosive skivvies said to be able to defeat current scanning technologies.  Fortunately the guy chosen to give them their test ride was a double agent working for Saudi security and the CIA.

The plot, which the White House said on Monday had involved the seizing of an underwear bomb by authorities in the Middle East sometime in the last 10 days, had caused alarm throughout the US.
It has also been linked to a suspected US drone strike in Yemen where two Yemeni members of al-Qaida were killed by a missile attack on their car on Sunday, one of them a senior militant, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso.

But the news that the individual at the heart of the bomb plot was in fact an informer for US intelligence is likely to raise just as many questions as it answers.

Citing US and Yemeni officials, Associated Press reported that the unnamed informant was working under cover for the Saudis and the CIA when he was given the bomb, which was of a new non-metallic type aimed at getting past airport security.

The informant then turned the device over to his handlers and has left Yemen, the officials told the news agency. 

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