The double agent who infiltrated al Qaeda and helped foil a plot to blow up a US-bound airliner held a British passport in addition to being a Saudi national, CNN reported on Thursday. The man was sent by Saudi counterterrorism agents into Yemen as a mole after it was learned that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was developing an updated model of the underwear bomb that failed to explode in a Christmas Day 2009 attempt.
CNN, citing counterterrorism sources, reported that the man grew up in Europe and at some point fell in with militant sympathisers who tried to recruit him for terror attacks. It said the Saudi man’s British passport enhanced his value to the terror group, because he could travel without a visa to the United States.
