The Nature of the Threat

Debkafile claims to have information on the nature of the threat that has caused the U.S. to close its embassies throughout the Middle East. If they're correct it truly is frightening. Here's the crucial information:

US officials are beginning to release nuggets of information about the nature of the threat.

According to one high placed US official, concern focuses on the possibility of terrorists carrying explosive devices implanted inside their bodies. debkafile’s counterterrorism sources add that plastic explosives in the body of a would-be suicide bomber without metal components are undetectable by standard screening devices such as those used at most international airports.

It has been suspected for some years that doctors and surgeons in Yemen in the service of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were experimenting with implanting of plastic explosive devices inside the bodies of suicide bombers or even animals. According to Western counterterrorism sources, the surgeon would open the abdominal cavity and implant the explosive device amongst the bomber’s internal organs.

Some US sources are calling the current threat the most serious since 9/11. They are alarmed by the degree of confidence AQIM leaders show in openly using electronic communications to boast about the unstoppable attack they are plotting.

A senior US official described the terrorists as saying the planned attack is “going to be big” and “strategically significant.”

A couple dozen suicide bombers with explosive implants boarding aircraft around the globe is a terrifying prospect. Let's hope TSA is profiling young Middle Eastern males and asking them to raise their shirts to see if they have scars. Let's also hope that they're not wasting their time asking octogenarian ladies to do the same.