'Al-Qaeda bomber' was CIA informant

[Tabarnack]

US and Yemeni officials say would-be bomber at heart of alleged al-Qaeda plot was working for CIA all along.

US and Yemeni officials said the supposed would-be bomber at the heart of an al-Qaeda airliner plot was actually an informant working for the CIA.

They said the informant was working for the CIA and Saudi Arabian intelligence when he was given the bomb. He then turned the device over to the authorities.

The officials, who spoke to US media on condition of anonymity on Tuesday, said the informant is safely out of Yemen.

Al Jazeera's John Terrett, reporting from Washington, said there has been “very limited comment on this story throughout the day from the [Obama] administration”.

Security procedures at US airports remained unchanged on Tuesday, a reflection of both the US confidence in its security systems and recognition that the government cannot realistically expect travellers to endure much more. Increased costs and delays to airlines and shipping companies could have a global economic impact, too.

"I would not expect any real changes for the traveling public," said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers. "There is a concern that overseas security doesn't match ours. That's an ongoing challenge."

The FBI is still analysing the explosive, which was intended to be concealed in a passenger's underwear. Officials said it was an upgrade over the bomb that failed to detonate on board an airplane over Detroit on Christmas 2009.

This new bomb contained no metal and used a chemical - lead azide - that was to be a detonator in a nearly successful 2010 plot to attack cargo planes.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/05/2012582397602546.html

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

Whoa, we needed to create an atmosphere of terror. As we've seen in the recent past, actions like these (plotted terror attacks), have allowed the government to profile religious and ethnic demographics, and have used situations like these to take more rights away. This does not surprise me.:thumbdown::thumbdown:

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

This isn't the least bit surprising, they were pretty useful patsies for when we needed to fuck around in the Middle-East for oil. This also leads me to believe that (according to the American governments own words) they are indeed moving from foreign "terrorists," to domestic "terrorists," so they can link it to Occupy and start rounding people up.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The worse part of this all is that it wasn't an April Fool's operation.

[ridethejetski]

Am i reading a different story to everyone else?

The guy was an informant and was given a bomb by a terrorist organisation to detonate, which he then handed over to the authorities instead?

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

It's great if there was a geniune attack being plotted and it has been prevented.
Only thing that bothers me personally is this will be used a way of vindicating the whole war on terror; See? we stopped an attack, so gtmo, rendition, wars, they're all worth it, long live freedom!

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Well, the upshot is that al Qaeda's attempt to blow up a bunch of workers and common folk both working for and riding on an airline was stopped ... this wasn't an NYPD sting operation, this was al Qaeda being dumb enough to hand one of their own indigenous bombs over to an undercover CIA or Saudi intelligence agent.

[Mindtoaster]

What the fuck is with Al Qaeda and planes?

They're like the most predictable terrorist organization to ever exist

[RedHal]

and we are so sure that the bomb actually came from a terrorist org?

[Yuppie Grinder]

I don't think it was a plot. Had it been the CIA would have gone through with it.
My initial reaction as a typical paranoid commie who thinks the CIA is behind everything was "oh shit, a CIA plot"

[Yazman]

Of course he was working for the CIA, the entire organisation was virtually created by fucking US ops if you go back to the 80s, with Osama & the mujahideen in Afghanistan, etc. Funny thing is that this just proves even further how the CIA has ties to these organisations.

[bcbm]

Of course he was working for the CIA, the entire organisation was virtually created by fucking US ops if you go back to the 80s, with Osama & the mujahideen in Afghanistan, etc. Funny thing is that this just proves even further how the CIA has ties to these organisations.

al qaeda's origins are more in the egyptian muslim brotherhood than the cia

[Princess Luna]

What the fuck is with Al Qaeda and planes?

They're like the most predictable terrorist organization to ever exist
Because detonating a bomb on something like a ship or train, does not do the same amount of damage that detonating a bomb on a plane does.

[Red Commissar]

Well, the upshot is that al Qaeda's attempt to blow up a bunch of workers and common folk both working for and riding on an airline was stopped ... this wasn't an NYPD sting operation, this was al Qaeda being dumb enough to hand one of their own indigenous bombs over to an undercover CIA or Saudi intelligence agent.

CIA, the worker's best friend since since 1947. :rolleyes:


al qaeda's origins are more in the egyptian muslim brotherhood than the cia

I think what he was referring to is whether or not al Qaeda benefited substantially from the CIA support of the Mujaheddin back in the 1980s. Though you are right, al Qaeda was not created by the CIA and has its roots elsewhere. Though the "Islamist" groups in Arab speaking areas, at least in places outside the peninsula, were partially encouraged as a counterweight to nationalist governments that weren't pro-US.

[ridethejetski]

CIA, the worker's best friend since since 1947. :rolleyes:


He clearly wasn't saying that. In this instance, the CIA inadvertently did something good.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

CIA, the worker's best friend since since 1947. :rolleyes:


I hope you don't disagree with me when I say it's a good thing when workers aren't murdered. I was commenting on the moral depravity of al Qaeda in addition to the fact that they made a pretty egregious strategic blunder in handing a weapon to a CIA agent.

[L.A.P.]

al qaeda's origins are more in the egyptian muslim brotherhood than the cia

Definetely not, unless the Muslim Bortherhood has connections to the CIA.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Their origins are in the brotherhood, and their later support during the Afghanistan war was from the CIA and Saudi intelligence.

[ridethejetski]

Definetely not, unless the Muslim Bortherhood has connections to the CIA.

It's roots in the MB aren't even controversial or contested I don't think. MB members left to create the groups that turned in Al Qaeda and MB intellectuals like Sayyid Qutd influenced a significant part of Al Qaeda's ideology.

The CIA didnt 'create' Al Qaeda. The CIA gave arms and funding to Mujahadeen groups in Afghanistan. Whether or not this included the members that would create the group known as Al Qaeda is not fully known, but in any case the group was created independent of the CIA.

[Red Commissar]

He clearly wasn't saying that. In this instance, the CIA inadvertently did something good.


I hope you don't disagree with me when I say it's a good thing when workers aren't murdered. I was commenting on the moral depravity of al Qaeda in addition to the fact that they made a pretty egregious strategic blunder in handing a weapon to a CIA agent.

Ok then, I'll just get inline with the rest of the neocons and get on board with this mentality, simplify it down to just that. While we save workers here, let the rest in Afghanistan get themselves bombed to high heaven, but that doesn't match the moral depravity of al Qaeda I guess.

Good thing they're getting all this nice information out of those Afghani's at Bagram and working with Saudi monarchists, right? So they can keep these atrocities from occurring?

I remember the same conversation going over the FBI's bust of an attempted bombing here in downtown Texas over a Jordanian student who came here to study, and apparently got radicalized along the way. FBI caught wind of it quickly, entrapment, and eventually they had him buy a bomb from an undercover agent. Of course though we painted as an attack averted, give ourselves a pat on the back, another reason to be worried about those people outside the country.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Ok then, I'll just get inline with the rest of the neocons and get on board with this mentality, simplify it down to just that. While we save workers here, let the rest in Afghanistan get themselves bombed to high heaven, but that doesn't match the moral depravity of al Qaeda I guess.

Good thing they're getting all this nice information out of those Afghani's at Bagram and working with Saudi monarchists, right? So they can keep these atrocities from occurring?


Hardly! It is bad when al Qaeda uses a bomb to kill workers but it is also bad when an American drone strike kills farmers. I think we should remain opposed to all reactionary institutions killing workers, be they the CIA or a religious fundamentalist organization.

Do you really think the choice to pursue socialist or anti-imperialist struggle is really so simplistic as an us-vs-them choice between spy agencies controlled by capitalist states and terrorist organizations? As far as I am concerned, the more the two undermine each other, the better for us.



I remember the same conversation going over the FBI's bust of an attempted bombing here in downtown Texas over a Jordanian student who came here to study, and apparently got radicalized along the way. FBI caught wind of it quickly, entrapment, and eventually they had him buy a bomb from an undercover agent. Of course though we painted as an attack averted, give ourselves a pat on the back, another reason to be worried about those people outside the country.I wouldn't equate this particular case to the FBI's morally reprehensible and utterly ineffective entrapment scheme. If the story is accurate, al Qaeda developed this underwear bomb themselves and intended for its utilization to kill innocent people, it was not a decoy made for counterintelligence purposes.

[Yazman]

I think what he was referring to is whether or not al Qaeda benefited substantially from the CIA support of the Mujaheddin back in the 1980s.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I was saying. Hence why I said "virtually created" and not just "created". They played a key role in arming and training them.