Blowing the search for the underwear bomb guy

Leak ended informant's rare opportunity, U.S. officials say

Saudi-born Briton had gained the trust of terrorists in the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda and helped foil a bomb plot, they say, but his work was cut short by Associated Press and newspaper reports.

By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times
4:46 PM PDT, May 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — Disclosure of a highly classified intelligence operation in Yemen last year compromised an exceedingly rare and valuable espionage achievement: an informant who had earned the trust of hardened terrorists, according to U.S. officials.

The operation received new scrutiny this week after the Justice Department disclosed it had obtained telephone records for calls to and from more than 20 lines belonging to the Associated Press news service and its journalists in April and May 2012 in a high-level investigation of the alleged leak of classified information.

The informant, a British citizen born in Saudi Arabia, had been recruited by British intelligence to operate as a double agent within the group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the most dangerous franchises of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

His access led to the U.S. drone strike that killed a senior Al Qaeda leader, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, on May 6, 2012. U.S. officials say Quso helped direct the terrorist attack that killed 17 sailors aboard the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Cole in a Yemeni harbor in October 2000.

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