FBI Claims al-Qaeda Fingerprint Found on Underwear Bomber Explosives

The FBI has a fingerprint and forensic evidence linking al-Qaida’s top bomb maker in Yemen to a trio of explosive devices used in recent attacks on the United States, tangible reminders that Osama bin Laden’s death has not eliminated the threat from the group’s most active and dangerous franchise.

Investigators have pulled a fingerprint of Ibrahim al-Asiri off the bomb hidden in the underwear of a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, U.S. counterterrorism officials said. Investigators also determined that the explosives used in that bomb are chemically identical to those hidden inside two printers that were shipped from Yemen last year, bound for Chicago and Philadelphia.