Report: Al-Qaeda plans to bomb plane in Olympics
Radicalized westerners recruited in attempt to evade airport security, Sunday Times reports. US, British intelligence agencies fear terrorist attacks during London Games
According to the Sunday Times, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has recruited a Norwegian convert at a training camp in Yemen. The group is understood to have selected a target, believed to be a US passenger jet.
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The intelligence officials said the latest plot was not specifically targeted at the Olympics and should be seen in the context of al-Qaeda’s continuing ambitions to blow up US planes.
“There is terrorist plotting going on irrespective of the Olympics. The only thing that connects this to the Olympics is the fact that they are about to happen,” said a Whitehall official to the Sunday Times.
The Norwegian recruit goes under the Islamic name of Abu Abdurrahman. He is understood to be in his 30s and with no previous criminal record. He converted in 2008 and quickly became radicalized. He later travelled to Yemen for training, the Sunday Times reported.
This is the fourth terrorist attempt of the group since 2009, when AQAP sent a Nigerian-born British student on a plane with an underpants bomb. The bomb failed to detonate over Detroit and the man was arrested and jailed.
In 2010, al-Qaeda sent two bombs hidden in printer cartridges on cargo planes destined for Chicago. They were intercepted and defused in Dubai and Britain.
A third plot was averted in early 2012, when a British undercover agent managed to infiltrated AQAP, and volunteered to be a suicide bomber. He smuggled out the latest version of the underpants bomb to US authorities.
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