How Yemeni Bomb Plot Uncovered

Let's say that the West was mega lucky to have been tipped off about last week's package bombs.

The source of a tip that alerted security agencies around the world to the package-bomb plot late last week was Jabir al-Fayfi, a Saudi national and former Guantánamo Bay inmate, a Yemeni security official said Monday.

The tip-off has been heralded as a major intelligence coup. But the detainee's shifting loyalties to al Qaeda over the years also underscore the challenges in battling the group.

Mr. al-Fayfi was released from Guantanamo in late 2006 into Saudi custody and entered a Saudi re-education program designed to sway Islamic militants away from violence. He appears to have joined up with al Qaeda in Yemen in 2008.


His defection after the re-education program in Saudi Arabia, as well as that of other key Saudis now leading the ranks of the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda, raised questions about the effectiveness of the Saudi method in dealing with their homegrown jihadis. But now, Mr. al-Fayfi's alleged role in uncovering the package-bomb plot could boost international confidence in the Saudi tactics. Instead of detention facilities like Guantánamo, Saudis employ religious scholars to persuade militants to forsake violence and offer generous social and job benefits to entice the men to settle into routine lives.


It isn't clear if Mr. al-Fayfi was a Saudi mole, working inside al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni branch of the group is known, or whether he genuinely rejoined al Qaeda and then had second thoughts.

Saudi officials didn't return calls seeking comment. The Yemeni official didn't comment. Whatever the case, U.S. and Arab officials said that without the tip-off, it would have been very difficult to have intercepted the package bombs last week. U.S. and European officials were quick to credit Saudi Arabia with providing the intelligence tip-off.

Anyone else suspect that 'our friends the Saudis' are trying to ensure that the West does not insist on shutting down their 'rehabilitation program'?

Hmmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem