The Obama administration confirmed late Monday what for weeks had been a highly classified operation.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security in late April, proceeding the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent out an intelligence bullet claiming there was no specific, credible threat to the U.S. homeland , noting that terror organizatoins would see an attackon the anniversary as a 'symbolic victory' and warned about the danger of 'lone wolf' attacks around that time. 

Yet, authorities confiscated a sophisticated bomb that apparently was part of a plot by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to bring down a U.S.-bound airliner.

A senior counterterrorism official was asked during a formal briefing to mark the bin Laden death anniversary whether any explosive package had been recently picked up or intercepted. "Not that I know of, no," the official said.

We have no credible information that terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden's death," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on April 26.

The Associated Press said it learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed Tuesday that President Obama was made aware of the operation in early April. 

Officials have said the latest counterterrorism operation was kept secret in order to protect the operation itself.  

 Law enforcement sources also told Fox News that the credibility of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI has been undercut by this because the administration, in fact, knew an explosive device was being tracked and intercepted and there were no immediate plans to change security procedures at U.S. airports and even issued a bulletin saying there was no plot.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee called for a review into the way the government handles top-secret information Tuesdays suggesting that the Obama administration may have misled the public by not disclosing information about the latest Al Qaeda-affiliate bomb plot. 

"I think we have to find a better way in the future to see or at least do (a review on) how we can tell the public, what we should tell the public," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said. He described the challenge as walking a "fine line," but said that if officials are trying to keep a secret, they should "do it in a way not to mislead the public." 

A team of FBI experts are examining the sophisticated new Al Qaeda bomb designed to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner to figure out whether it could have slipped past airport security and taken down a commercial airplane, U.S. officials said.

 The bomb, now in U.S. hands,  confiscated after an undercover CIA double agent inflitrated al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen and authorities were able to foil the ambitious plot by a small affiliate of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) . The mole, according to reports, was to have been the designated "martyr" wearing the explosive underpants that would be detonated on a U.S.-bound plane.

The device did not contain metal and the potential suicide bomber would have likely gone undetected and passed through an airport metal detector.

“It is our assessment that the threat from AQAP is growing due to the territorial gains the group made during the political standoff in Yemen that lasted from early 2011 until this past February," the U.S. official said. "Those territorial gains have allowed the group to establish additional training camps.”

Public support for maintaining U.S. forces in Afghanistan has reached a new low.  Support for a troop pullout is nearly as extensive 59 percent among swing voters, according to the latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted in April. 

While Americans have been concerned predominantly on the economy since 2008, it is naive and dangerous to underestimate unrelenting terror networks, which are aided by outlaw regimes and ideologies that incite the murder of the innocent, and biological and chemical and nuclear weapons that multiply destructive power.

We are not immune from attack.

Suicide-bombing-terrorists are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism, sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions. The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to eliminate it and destroy it where it grows.

The war on terror is not  just America's fight, this is civilization's struggle for freedom versus fundamentalism, democracy versus conflict and hope versus fear.