Al-Qaeda Man Turned MI-6 Spy Reveals the Reason for 2017 Laptop Ban - Reports

Last year’s US ban on carrying electronics aboard passenger flights from Middle Eastern and African airports was apparently prompted by the actions of one Briton turned terrorist, according to an MI-6 spy.

Aimen Dean, a former al-Qaeda* explosives expert who was recruited by MI-6 to infiltrate the terrorists’ ranks, has announced that the US essentially imposed its 2017 electronics ban because of one British bomb-maker who developed explosive devises disguised as laptop batteries, according to The Guardian.

In his book called Nine Lives and co-authored with Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, Dean wrote that an intelligence source informed him in 2017 about Tariq’s involvement in a Daesh* plot "to develop bombs that could be smuggled onto aircraft disguised as laptop batteries."

Hamayun Tariq, also known as Abu Muslim al-Britani, is a British national who previously served jail time for conspiring to defraud banks and post offices, and who reportedly left the country in 2012 and eventually joined the ranks of Daesh and became one of their top bomb-makers.

One of Tariq’s projects allegedly involved creating bombs that looked like laptop batteries and could be easily smuggled aboard passenger airliners, while the bomb maker himself currently works on “adapting drones to strike football stadiums and other crowded venues,” the newspaper ads, citing Dean’s revelations.

READ MORE: French Police Detain Man Suspected of Involvement in 2015 Terror Attacks

The so-called 2017 electronics ban was imposed by the US government in March 2017, prohibiting passengers travelling to the United States from 10 major airports in the Middle East and North Africa The ban was officially lifted in July 2017 due to alleged airport security improvements.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL and IS) and al-Qaeda are terrorist groups banned in Russia and many other countries.