May 8 2012
Despite the discovery of a sophisticated new al Qaida airline bomb plot, US congressional and security officials suggested there is no immediate need to change airport security procedures, which already subject shoeless passengers to intrusive pat-downs and body scans.
The CIA, with help from a well-placed informant and foreign intelligence services, conducted a covert operation in Yemen in recent weeks that disrupted a nascent suicide plot and recovered a new bomb, US officials said.
Officials said the bomb represents an upgrade over the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on December 25 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger's underwear, but this time al Qaida developed a more refined detonation system.
FBI experts are picking apart that non-metallic device to see if it could have slipped through security and taken down a plane.
Meanwhile, US officials sought to reassure the public that security measures at airports are strong. They said there are no immediate plans to subject airline passengers to new security screenings.
"I think people getting on a plane today should feel confident that their intelligence services are working, day in and day out," John Brennan, the top counterterrorism adviser to US president Barack Obama, said on ABC television's Good Morning America.
Just last winter, al Qaida's Yemen branch boasted that it had obtained a supply of chemicals used to make bombs. Chemicals can eliminate the need for electrical equipment to detonate explosives.
"Hence, no wearisome measures are taken anymore to attain the needed large amount of chemicals for explosives," the group wrote in its online magazine, "Inspire."
Working with an informant close to al Qaida in Yemen, the CIA caught wind of the bomb plot last month.
The would-be bomber was supposed to buy a plane ticket to the United States and detonate the bomb inside the country, officials said.