Saudis emerge as key US ally against terrorists
US: A decade after hijackers mostly from Saudi Arabia attacked the
United States with passenger jets, the Saudis have emerged as the
principal ally of the U.S. against al-Qaida's spinoff group in Yemen and
at least twice have disrupted plots to explode sophisticated bombs
aboard airlines.
Details emerging about the latest unraveled plot revealed that a
Saudi double agent fooled the terror group, known as al-Qaida in the
Arabian Peninsula, passing himself off as an eager would-be suicide
bomber. Instead, he secretly turned over the group's most up-to-date
underwear bomb to Saudi Arabia, which gave it to the CIA. Before he was
whisked to safety, the spy provided intelligence that helped the CIA
kill al-Qaida's senior operations leader, Fahd al-Quso, who died in a
drone strike last weekend.
The role of Saudi Arabia disrupting the plot follows warnings in 2010
from the oil-rich kingdom about a plot to blow up cargo planes inside
the U.S., either on runways or over American cities. That plot involved
a frantic chase across five countries of two packages containing bombs
powerful enough to down an airplane. Twice, a bomb was aboard a
passenger plane. Once, authorities were just minutes too late to stop a
cargo jet with a bomb from departing for its next destination. AP
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