The Underwear Bomb Plot And al-Qaeda’s ‘Genius’ Bombmaker

The FBI’s bomb lab at Quantico, Virginia, is examining the latest device seized from al-Qaeda.

It’s a new bomb designed to be concealed in a man’s underwear. It is small and has no metal parts, so would have been difficult to detect by airport security.

Luckily, the suicide bomber selected for the mission was a Saudi secret agent who delivered it to the CIA.

The bomb in this case is allegedly the handiwork of a 30-year old Saudi man, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri.

He’s known to be ruthless, having once used his own brother in a suicide attack.

Bruce Riedel grudgingly calls him a genius.

Reidel served 30 years with the CIA, and is now a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“I can’t think of a target more important than Asiri,” he tells anchor Marco Werman.

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Marco Werman: The bomb in this case is allegedly the handiwork of a 30-year-old Saudi man, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. He’s known to be ruthless, once having used his own brother in a suicide attack. Bruce Riedel grudgingly calls him a genius. Riedel served 30 years with the CIA and is now a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Bruce Riedel: I can’t think of a target more important than Asiri. He has now demonstrated the capacity to build bombs that have penetrated airport security twice. First, he built the so-called underwear bomb that was used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day 2009. That bomb had gone through several security checks at several different airports. Then a year later he built the bombs that were hidden in computer toner cartridges. Those bombs also successfully penetrated airport security at a number of places. We were only able to foil that plot because Saudi Intelligence gave us the routing numbers of the two parcels we were looking for.

Werman: So Asiri is seemingly determined to succeed some kind of an attack inside the United States, but how many capable bombers has Asiri trained to build the same kind of bomb and worked without him?

Riedel: That’s a very good question. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has said publicly that they have a workshop and that they have recruited now sufficient numbers of people that if Asiri was to be killed in a drone strike, for example, his legacy will live on that he’s created a cadre of bomb making experts. Now we don’t know that for sure, but there’s no reason to believe that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is misleading us about that.

Werman: What kind of effects does something like this have on the infiltrated organization? Is it increased paranoia and descent?

Riedel: Well one of the things you always try to do is terrorize the terrorists. The drones helped to do that, but also the knowledge that there are penetrations of their own organization can be very helpful. It can lead to a whole case of suspicions being cast on everyone. That can lead to a purge of the organization and it can explode from within.

Werman: Now the agent who apprehended the bomb and Asiri, the bomb maker, are both Saudis, so this incident must speak volumes to you about the current level of intelligence cooperation between the US and Saudi Arabia.

Riedel: There’s very close, long standing collaboration between the United States and Saudi Arabia. President Obama’s top counterterrorism official John Brennan has served in Saudi Arabia twice in his career and knows them well. They know him well. There’s a strong degree of trust between our service and their service.

Werman: And how strong is that trust today because a lot of information about this case has leaked out. I can’t imagine the Saudis are very pleased about that.

Riedel: I’m sure there’s gonna be some harsh words in private between the Saudis and Americans over all this coming out into the newspapers, but the Saudis know America well. They’ve been dealing with us for a long time and they know our strengths and our weaknesses and they know that one of the downsides of dealing with America is that we have a problem keeping secrets. Now we’re not a closed society like Saudi Arabia, we’re an open one. I think in the long term while they may be irritated about this, it probably doesn’t hurt US-Saudi relations if Americans know that Saudis have now twice thwarted plots to attack America.

Werman: The identity of the double agent has not been revealed, but is it safe to assume that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula knows who he is?

Riedel: I don’t think there’s any question that the al-Qaeda knows they’ve been compromised and they know who the penetration has been. In addition to helping foil the plot, the information this asset provided probably lead to the successful drone strike last Sunday that killed the head of operations of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. But I think the dangerous thing to bear in mind is that while we’ve had a success this week, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was growing very rapidly in Yemen. Yemen is a state that’s broken apart and a failed state, and the consequence of its failure, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is now rapidly taking over parts of the southern half of the country.

Werman: Bruce Riedel, thank you very much for your time.

Riedel: My pleasure.

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