Attempt on Saudi prince evidence of interest in hidden explosives

In recent days, there’s been a flurry of reporting about the ostensibly novel new threat of jihadist suicide bombers detonating explosives that they’ve hidden inside their bodies. The concerns arose from the Aug. 28 detonation of between 100 grams to one pound of explosives - depending on whose version of events you accept - that 23-year-old Al Qaeda suicide bomber Abdullah Hassan Tali' Al Asiri reputedly had hidden in his rectum.

That Al Asiri exploded a bomb concealed on his person and defeated layers of Saudi security isn't disputed. He had intended to kill Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in charge of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism efforts. The prince sustained only a minor injury from the blast.

Saudi officials have dismissed reports that Al Asiri hid the explosive device in his rectum based on what they say were the findings of their post-bombing investigation. Instead, Saudi officials contend that in order to pass through several layers of metal detectors, Al Asiri used some form of plastic or liquid explosive that was ignited with a chemical fuse, and that the bomb was concealed in his underwear. Kingdom officials said Al Asiri apparently believed Muslim cultural taboos would prevent a search of that part of his body.

But whether the bomb Al Asiri had secreted on him was concealed in his rectum or not, the fact is the notion that jihadist suicide bombers can hide a bomb rectally or surgically implanted in their bodies isn't a new jihadist strategy. A year ago, Homeland Security Today revealed in its August 2008 investigative report, Making Black Magic, that determined jihadists had begun to experiment with all sorts of innovative – bizarre even – ways to secret suicide bombs, including hiding potentially powerful explosives inside their bodies.

While the British tabloid, The Sun, quoted an official as saying of Al Asiri's alleged method of attack that “we've never heard of anything quite like this before," US and Western counterterrorists have in fact been aware of Al Qaeda’s experimentation with internal and other forms of bomb concealment methods for quite some time.

Three years ago, an Iraqi national found to have electrical wires and a magnet inside his rectum sparked a security scare at Los Angeles International Airport. The metals triggered the boarding gate metal detector, and upon finding the wires officials on the scene initially feared they were part of a bomb that the man had hidden in his rectum.

Al Maliki was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation - his green card reportedly had expired and he had prior arrests. While federal officials haven't elaborated on the circumstances of his bizarre behavior, it did cause some federal counterterrorism authorities to wonder whether the incident was part of an effort to determine what sort of materials could be concealed in one's body and snuck past airport security stations. Terrorist organizations are known to test and observe airport security screening processes and capabilities.

Harvey Kushner, chairman of the criminal justice department at Long Island University and author of Terrorism in America, The Future of Terrorism: Violence in the New Millennium, and the Concise Encyclopedia of Extremism and Terrorism, said more than two years ago that “terrorists are getting exponentially smarter.”

Indeed. According to counterterrorism experts, terrorists are coming up with more and more ways to slip past our first lines of defense.

And “to do so,” Homeland Security Today reported a year ago, “they’ve been experimenting with some really off the wall methods of deception to disguise their suicidal methodologies, like hiding upwards of three pounds of C-4, Semtex or some other plastic bonded explosive (PBX) rectally, vaginally and even surgically. The explosive could be remotely detonated while the bomb is inside terrorists’ bodies.”

“It’s gruesome stuff, to be sure,” Homeland Security Today reported, “but these suicidal terrorists are, in effect, the willing jihadist equivalents of drug ‘mules,’ the people - often indigent women and children - drug traffickers pay to ingest condoms or other similar material that is nearly filled to bursting with heroin or cocaine.”

"The rectum strategy is incredible, [but] not very different from what we in the US Coast Guard [USCG] deal with in handling drug runners," explained USCG Commander and Judge Advocate Glenn Sulmasy, author of the new book, "The National Security Court System: A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror."

In February 2008, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis even issued an intelligence advisory warning that Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations might try to use women jihadists hiding explosives inside “pregnancy prosthetics … that mimic the look of a pregnant woman.”

The threat assessment said “female suicide bombers have used devices that make them appear pregnant to hide explosive devices.”

Earlier last year, terrorists did in fact use a crude form of deception in dispatching female jihadists. In Iraq, Al Qaeda used Muslim women wearing concealed suicide vests to carry out bombings after increased security and protective concrete walls made car bombings more difficult.

But as security authorities wised up to terrorists’ new ruses, the more astute among counterterrror intelligence authorities began pondering truly frightening, out-of-the-box scenarios that terrorists are believed to have studied to conceal a variety of explosives - like lining pregnancy prosthetics with sheet plastic explosives.

Homeland Security Today reported that these authorities had warned that the wearer may be able to get through airports that have no effective trace explosives sniffers or whole body imagers.

“This suddenly has become a very viable possibility,” a veteran counterterrorist said on background.

In its 2008 annual report, the Defense Department’s Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) stated that “for the foreseeable future,” terrorists’ “weapon of choice will continue to be the IED and they will continue to improvise new and dangerous ways to employ IEDs to overcome our technology advantage and achieve strategic influence.”

Al Asiri was a wanted Saudi militant from the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) terrorist organization who’d declared that he’d renounced terrorism and had requested to meet Prince Nayef to repent and be accepted into the kingdom’s reformed terrorist amnesty program.

Such surrenders are not unprecedented. In February, former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mohammed Al Awfi, a terrorist who appeared with Al Asiri on Saudi Arabia’s list of most-wanted terrorists, surrendered in Yemen and was transported to Saudi Arabia where he renounced terrorism and entered into the kingdom’s amnesty program.

What sent shock waves through Saudi and Western counterterrorism security offices is not that Al Asiri was a “sleeper” Al Qaeda suicide bomber, but rather that he was able to pass through the layers of Saudi security with a bomb possibly concealed in his rectum in order to physically meet with the Prince.

Saudi officials have admitted that Al Asiri avoided metal detectors at two airports and by Saudi palace security, followed by spending 30 hours with the prince's secret service agents without anyone suspecting anything suspicious.

The Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group AQAP posted a video and animation of Al Asiri’s suicide bombing technique through its media arm, the Al Malahem Foundation. Titled, “The Grandchildren of Muhammad ibn Maslamah,” the 17 minute video clearly is meant as propaganda for encouraging jihadists to use this and other fresh methods for carrying out suicide bombings.

In claiming responsibility for the attack, AQAP stated “…Abdullah Hassan Taleh Al Asiri, who was on the list of 85 wanted persons, was able, with the help of God, to enter Nayef’s palace as he was among his guards and detonate an explosive device. No one will be able to know the type of this device or the way it was detonated. Al Asiri managed to pass all the security checkpoints in Najran and Jeddah airports and was transported on board Mohammed bin Nayef’s private plane.”

Al Asiri’s suicide bombing failed because, authorities say, the force of the blast from the relatively small amount of explosive was suppressed by his body. But had, say, two or three pounds been detonated … “well, that may very well have killed” the prince, one knowledgeable counterterrorism official told HSToday.us.

“But Al Qaeda has learned from this – that I’m quite certain,” another veteran US counterterrorist told HSToday.us on background, noting that it’s only a matter of time before suicide bombers use more powerful explosives hidden inside their bodies, including having bombs surgically implanted inside them that can either be remotely detonated or triggered by the