Firemen at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center (Creative Commons)

The attack would have been carried out by a new version of the underwear bomb that didn't explode on a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

The Huffington Post said: This new bomb was also built to be used in a passenger's underwear but contained a more refined detonation system.

The would-be suicide bomber was told to buy a ticket on the airliner of his choosing and decide the timing of the attack. It's not immediately clear what happened to the would-be bomber.

Before he picked a target or bought plane tickets, the CIA seized the bomb, according to Fox News. 

It's also unclear who built the bomb, but authorities believe it had to be made by well-known bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. 

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