Plot was hatched in Guantanamo
TWO former Guantanamo Bay inmates set free by the United States are believed to have masterminded the Christmas Day bomb plot.
Muhamad Attik al-Harbi and Said Ali al-Shihri were sent back to their home country of Saudi Arabia in November 2007 to undergo an “art therapy rehabilitation program”.
But instead of turning their backs on extremism the pair fled to the Al Qaeda hotbed of neighbouring Yemen where they are believed to have risen to the terror network’s high command. Both appeared in a propaganda video for the organisation in January this year.
Just months after arriving in Saudi Arabia, al-Shihri was implicated in the September 2008 American embassy bombing in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.