Report: Saudi Agent Helped Thwart Al-Qaeda Attack

"The New York Times" reports that a Saudi Arabian double agent infiltrated Al-Qaeda's organization in Yemen to help thwart a plan to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner in April.

U.S. and foreign officials say the Saudi agent volunteered to be a suicide bomber for the Al-Qaeda terrorist attack, but then delivered the bomb and other information about Yemen's Al-Qaeda leadership to U.S. and Saudi intelligence instead.

U.S. officials say that information allowed the CIA to direct a drone strike on May 6 that killed Fahd Muhammad Ahmed al-Quso -- the external operations director for "Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" and a suspect in the bombing of the "USS Cole" in Yemen in 2000.

A tribal chief in Yemen says Quso was killed on May 6 when two missiles struck his home at Rafadh in Yemen's Shabwa Province.

Based on reporting by "The New York Times," AP, and AFP