The U.S. intelligence community has won plaudits for helping derail a series of recent terror plots, including this week’s disclosure of an al-Qaida affiliate’s attempt to use a sophisticated underwear bomb to destroy a Western jetliner. But the U.S. has a quiet ally who has been instrumental in stopping both the new plot and an earlier militant attempt to destroy U.S. cargo planes by secretly shipping explosives in conventional mail packages: Saudi Arabia, a country once derided as a financial supporter of Islamic militants around the globe.
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