Security Chiefs believe the identity of the double agent who foiled an al-Qaeda underwear bomb plot will be exposed by the Islamic terrorist group within weeks.
Security Chiefs believe the identity of the double agent who foiled an al-Qaeda underwear bomb plot will be exposed by the Islamic terrorist group within weeks.
MI5 fear that it will attempt to exact revenge on the British spy, who penetrated al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), by publishing his photograph on the internet, a move to incite extremists to hunt him down.
Sources have described the spy as "gold dust", adding that he was one of just a handful of agents in the past ten years to have penetrated one of the groups aligned to al-Qaeda.
AQAP represents the "greatest operational threat" to Britain and the US, senior Whitehall sources told The Sunday Telegraph last night (Sunday).
The agent, a British passport holder of Saudi heritage, volunteered to take part in an AQAP suicide mission but, instead, escaped with an underwear bomb designed to blow up a US airliner.
He is understood to have been recruited and trained by MI5's G6 section - which is responsible for agent handling - before being sent on his mission to penetrate the Yemeni-based terror group. A former security official told The Sunday Telegraph that although the mission to penetrate AQAP was a success, the agent was now "burned" and would never be able to take part in covert operations again. In all likelihood, the official said, the agent will have to be relocated outside of the Middle East and provided with a new identity.
It can also be revealed that al-Qaeda believed that the double agent came from a family with radical Islamic ties and was recommended by a close relative who was trusted by leaders of AQAP, according to US intelligence.
"He apparently came from what AQAP regarded as a good family, meaning that they believed he was a radical Islamist in his DNA, and was brought in to the group by a close male relative," said Dan Goure, a Pentagon consultant and vice-president of the Lexington Institute, a national security think-tank.
"They embraced him for his family ties, or his perceived family ties."
It us unclear whether the man's radical roots were genuine, and whether he infiltrated AQAP as a mole or only changed sides later.
AQAP would have conducted detailed checks on the foreign volunteer, helped by sympathisers in Britain.
The spy was issued with a more sophisticated version of the underwear bomb that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian who studied in London, tried to detonate on an aircraft over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
The double agent passed the device to his Saudi handlers. It is being analysed by the FBI, who believe it carries the signature of AQAP's master bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri.
The foiling of the plot was a major coup for British, Saudi and US intelligence agencies, but the leaking of information about the operation from US and Saudi sources is seen as a significant own-goal. It has exasperated MI5 and MI6, which believe their operations have been compromised.
Leon Panetta, the US Defence Secretary, has ordered James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, to head an investigation into the leaks.
This week, the latest edition of Inspire - the AQAP magazine distributed on the internet - contained alarming new messages from the group, including plans for an assassination campaign targeting individuals on Western city streets.
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