Former Guantanamo Bay Prisoner Revealed Al-Qaeda Package-Bomb Plot

Details are emerging about how US and British authorities were tipped off about the latest al-Qaeda bomb plot.

A leading al-Qaida militant in Yemen who surrendered to Saudi Arabia last month provided the tip that led to the thwarting of the mail bomb plot, Yemeni security officials said Monday.

The officials said Jabir al-Fayfi, a Saudi militant who had joined al-Qaida in Yemen, told Saudi officials about the plan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Several tribal leaders with knowledge of the situation, who similarly spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed al-Fayfi's role.

U.S. officials have said an alert from Saudi Arabia led to the interception on Friday of two explosive devices, hidden in packages addressed to Chicago-area synagogues, on planes transiting in Britain and Dubai. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group's affiliate in Yemen, is suspected in the attempted bombing.

The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan on Monday cited Saudi security officials saying that the kingdom gave U.S. investigators the tracking numbers of the packages.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia announced that al-Fayfi had turned himself in. Al-Fayfi, who is in mid-30s, had been captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan following the 2001 toppling of the Taliban there. He was held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until early 2007, when he was released to Saudi Arabia.

There, he was put through the kingdom's rehabilitation program for militants. But soon after his release from the program, he fled to neighboring Yemen and joined al-Qaida there, according to the Saudi Interior Ministry. In September, he contacted Saudi authorities saying he wanted to turn himself in. A private jet was sent to the Yemeni capital San'a to retrieve him, Saudi security officials told the Saudi-owned daily Al-Hayat at the time.

The Yemeni security officials said they suspect that the Saudis planted al-Fayfi in al-Qaida in Yemen as a double agent.

Saudi security officials could not immediately be reached for comment whether al-Fayfi had a role in tipping them off to the mail bomb plot.

But al-Fayfi's surrender may have revealed other plots as well. In mid-October, Saudi Arabia warned European authorities of a new terror threat from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, saying the group's operatives were active on the continent, particularly in France.

Saudi Arabia has for years been working to infiltrate al-Qaida in its unstable neighbor to the south, Yemen. Saudi intelligence has recruited hundreds of informers in Yemen, gives powerful tribal chiefs generous stipends to ensure their loyalty and even passes out money within Yemen's security forces.

By: Shelldrake