At least 55 people were killed and some 372 injured by two ...
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and HWAIDA SAAD
At least 55 people were killed and some 372 injured by two powerful car bombs that exploded outside a key intelligence compound in Damascus early on Thursday, Syrian state television reported. The blasts peeled open a new, more treacherous front in the struggle for the country. The bombings tore off the front of a nine-story intelligence headquarters and left a grisly scene on the crowded highway in front of it, with incinerated corpses and many burning vehicles emitting plumes of black smoke visible across the capital. Pictures of the gruesome, bloody wreckage with severed body parts scattered about were shown repeatedly on state television and other official media.
The dead and injured included both soldiers and civilians. At least 11 soldiers were dead, said a source at the military hospital in the Mezzeh neighborhood where the bulk of the casualties from the security services were taken. The Ministry of Health also said that 15 dead were unidentified remains.
Rare Double Agent Disrupted Bombing Plot, U.S. Says
By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC SCHMITT
The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday.
In an extraordinary intelligence coup, the double agent left Yemen last month, traveling by way of the United Arab Emirates, and delivered both the innovative bomb designed for his aviation attack and inside information on the group’s leaders, locations, methods and plans to the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi intelligence and allied foreign intelligence agencies.
Qaeda Plot to Attack Plane Foiled, U.S. Officials Say
By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC SCHMITT
The Central Intelligence Agency, working closely with foreign partners, thwarted a plot by the branch of Al Qaeda in Yemen to smuggle an experimental bomb aboard an airliner bound for the United States, intelligence officials said on Monday.
Yemen Interior Ministry, via Associated Press Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, a bomb maker.
The intelligence services detected the scheme as it took shape in mid-April, officials said, and the explosive device was seized in the Middle East outside Yemen about a week ago before it could be deployed.
Special Report - 05/11/12
