Reuters: the new, improved underwear bomber was planted in the “conspiracy” by the intelligence community:

Would-be suicide bomber was U.S. informant

By Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON | Wed May 9, 2012 5:22pm EDT

(Reuters) – The would-be suicide bomber in a plot by al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate was planted in the group by an allied intelligence agency or turned into an informant early in the conspiracy, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The CIA and its foreign partners tracked the plot for several weeks and then managed to get the informant to deliver the bomb outside Yemen, possibly to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, sources said.

“Managed to get [him] to deliver the bomb…”?  Do they mean, told him to do so if he wanted to get paid?

The New York Times reported the would-be suicide bomber was an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who volunteered for the mission to detonate the bomb aboard a U.S.-bound airliner.

I truly hope no one actually fell for this one.