The CIA had al Qaeda fooled from the beginning.
US operatives gave al Qaeda thugs the ultimate espionage wedgie, sneaking a spy into their Yemini ring and foiling a diabolical underwear bombing plot.
Last month, US intelligence learned that al Qaeda’s Yemen branch hoped to launch a spectacular attack using a new, nearly undetectable bomb aboard an airliner bound for America, officials say.
But the man the terrorists were counting on to carry out the attack was actually working for the CIA and Saudi intelligence, US and Yemeni officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The dramatic sting operation thwarted the attack before it had a chance to succeed.
The secret insider is now “safely out of Yemen,” an intelligence source told ABC News, following a massive spy coup for the CIA and other national security agencies.
American bomb experts are picking apart the sophisticated underwear explosive, designed to get through airport security and go off on a US-bound plane.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was a “high likelihood” US airport scanners would have detected this undie bomb. But other security officials noted that international airports have different security standards.
Terrorists had wanted to take down a US airliner on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death by using this Fruit of the Boom 2.0 plot.
The undie explosive had no metal and FBI analysts — at their labs in Quantico, Va. — want to determine if a suicide bomber could have slipped through airport gate security, and ultimately gone off in midair.
This was al Qaeda’s latest bid to make a new-and-improved version of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jet over Detroit on Christmas 2009.
Intelligence sources believe this was the evil handiwork of infamous Saudi-born Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the 28-year-old explosives expert behind earlier failed attempts to blow up US planes.
These new frighty whiteys had a more refined detonation system, US officials said.
“The disruption of this . . . plot underscores the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad,” said Caitlin Hayden, a National Security Council spokeswoman.
More bombers, with similar devices, are believed to still be at large, ABC News reported.
Intelligence operatives caught wind of the foiled plot — which was planned around the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s killing at the hands of Navy SEAL Team Six on May 2, 2011.
It is similar to other devices used by al Qaeda in Yemen, the bureau said.
Al-Asiri is believed to have hidden a similar device in his brother’s anal cavity in an assassination attempt on a Saudi official. The bomb killed his little brother, but the official survived.
President Obama had been informed of the latest underwear bomb plot in April but kept its existence secret from the public.
In fact, in the days leading up to the anniversary of the bin Laden raid, officials had said there were no credible threats.
But “while the president was assured that the device did not pose a threat to the public, he directed the Department of Homeland Security and law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to take whatever steps necessary to guard against this type of attack,” Hayden said.
Intelligence gained during the investigation likely led to Sunday’s fatal drone strike against Fahd al Quso, who was involved in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Although thwarting the plot was a clear victory, it did little to appease authorities here, who griped that they were kept in the dark on the dangerous threat.
“We [should have been] notified by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, but we were not,’’ a Port Authority official told The Post.
Al-Asiri remains at large.
His 2009 pair of jihad jockeys had a special pouch in them — a condom packed with 80 grams of PETN, an ingredient found in the plastic explosive Semtex.
Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to set the bomb off by injecting the condom with acid through a hypodermic needle, but it failed.
Abdulmutallab is now serving life in prison.
With AP