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

The World

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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