The spy who helped Western intelligence agencies thwart a plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner was a British national of Middle Eastern origin, sources tell NBC News.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, also say that British intelligence was "heavily involved" in recruiting the spy, who has not yet been identified publicly, and penetrating the plot by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to detonate a new, more sophisticated underwear bomb aboard a U.S. jetliner.

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, would say only that multiple friendly security services were involved in the operation. Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism operation also were involved, other U.S. officials have told NBC News.

U.S. and British officials have long reported that AQAP has wanted to recruit Muslims with Western passports to carry out attacks like the one revealed this week. As an example, the officials cited AQAP’s recruitment of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who failed in the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit.

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Insider who thwarted bomb plot was supposed to carry it out 

U.S. officials have said previously that the bomb -- a refined version of an “underwear bomb” used in two previous failed terror plots -- was driven out of Yemen by the insider into Saudi Arabia. It is now in the hands of U.S. bomb experts at the FBI labs in Quantico, Va., where experts have been examining it for a week, the officials said. The infiltrator also is safely out of Yemen.

The insider also provided information that allowed the U.S. to launch a Predator drone strike that killed AQAP's operations chief, Fahd al-Quso, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday.

Evan Kohlmann, NBC counterterrorism analyst, said he found earlier reports that the spy  was a Saudi national not very credible.

“AQAP was going to give a suicide bomb to someone with a Saudi passport?” Kohlmann asked rhetorically. “AQAP has been looking for bombers with Western passports, not those who would raise suspicions.”

He noted that Abdulmutallab, who tried to detonate an earlier version of the underwear bomb aboard the Northwest flight, better  fit the profile AQAP was looking at: a young upper class college student with a Nigerian passport and a multiple-entry U.S. visa. A British national would attract even less attention, he said.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News; NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams and Jonathan Dienst of WNBC-TV contributed to this report.

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters Tuesday that terrorists keep trying to come up with “more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people” after a plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner was foiled by the CIA.

U.S. officials said Monday that the plot involved a bomb that improved on the one that had been sewn into the underpants of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who failed in a plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009.

The latest bomb had a more refined detonation mechanism and was "totally non-metallic," which officials told NBC News would have made it more difficult to detect by traditional screening processes.

“With respect to the plot that was discussed in Washington, as the White House said, the device did not appear to pose a threat to the public air service, but the plot itself indicates that these terrorists keep trying,” Clinton, who is in New Delhi, India, said.

“They keep trying to devise more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people, and it's a reminder as to why we have to remain vigilant at home and abroad … protecting our nation and protecting friendly nations and peoples like India and others,” she added.

Clinton also called for India’s neighbor Pakistan “to do more” to tackle terrorists. “It needs to make sure that its territory is not used as a launching pad for terrorist attacks anywhere, including inside of Pakistan, because the great unfortunate fact is that terrorists in Pakistan have killed more than 30,000 Pakistanis,” she said.

CIA foiled al-Qaida plot to destroy US-bound airliner

The new underwear bomb had some “refinements on reliability” that made it more likely to explode, a U.S. counterterrorism official told NBC News. In addition to being a threat to commercial planes, this type of bomb could be used in crowded places, on other transportation systems or for assassinations, the official said.

More than 30 Yemeni troops killed in militant attack

The official noted that the bomb “was never near a plane” and “never posed a risk.” The plot was disrupted well before it threatened Americans or U.S. allies, the official added.

Reports: Al-Qaida leader wanted in USS Cole bombing killed in Yemen airstrike

The U.S. received the device last month. The FBI is conducting technical and forensic analyses on it.

The official would not specify which international security service provided the intelligence that led to the unraveling of the plot, as there is concern about retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets inside Yemen.

Bin Laden in hiding: Hatching horrific plots despite crippling attacks on al-Qaida

The FBI said in a statement that the successful operation was the "result of close cooperation with our security and intelligence partners overseas."

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AP, file

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is seen in an image taken from a video found at his walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The first anniversary of bin Laden's killing by U.S. Navy SEALs is on Tuesday.

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan -- A year after Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan, one key question has yet to be answered: how did the world's most wanted man manage to move and live, undetected, in this country for so long?

Journalists, analysts, and others have been working to fill in the narrative holes over the last 12 months. Leaked and strategically released nuggets of information have helped to paint a vague picture of what life was like inside the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden spent his final years, living with three of his wives, and several children and grandchildren. We've learned of the austere conditions inside the home, the restricted lifestyle led by all inside, and the discipline with which the head of al-Qaida communicated with a trusted few. But the crucial questions -- how he got to that compound in the first place and who helped him to do so -- remain unanswered.

Kamran Bokhari, vice-president for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, a global intelligence company, believes the idea that bin Laden moved around without a network of individuals organizing his transportation and logistics is simply not possible.

"If you're a six-foot-five Arab, and the most wanted man on the planet, you can't just walk into a place like Pakistan without support," Bokhari said. "So what's the nature of that support?"

U.S. officials publicly state they have no evidence that any Pakistani institutional leaders had any knowledge of bin Laden's presence here, nor played any role in helping to move him. Privately, however, some admit that the deep mistrust between the two nations has led to strong, lingering suspicions within many in the U.S. that Pakistan's premier intelligence agency -- Inter-Services Intelligence, or the ISI -- must have known, at some level.

Slideshow: After the raid: Inside bin Laden's compound

Farooq Naeem / AFP - Getty Images

U.S. forces found and killed the al-Qaida leader in the affluent Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where he had been living in a large compound.

Launch slideshow

"There are deep suspicions on both sides," says retired General Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former national security advisor and ambassador to the United States. "I think the biggest concern in the U.S., if I put it in a phrase, is that Pakistan is hunting with the hounds and running with the hares. That is the perception."

Panetta recalls nail-biting moments of bin Laden raid

That perception has not been helped by what seem to be Pakistan's action priorities over the last year. The prevailing public dialogue among military and government officials in the immediate raid aftermath focused on how the U.S. had managed to breach Pakistan's borders, not how bin Laden had. The Pakistani doctor who ran a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad for the CIA in an effort to secure DNA samples from inside the bin Laden compound was swiftly tracked down, arrested, and remains in detention, possibly to stand trial for treason. Authorities quietly began work after dark to demolish the compound in February, keeping press behind a security cordon half a mile away, and after a year in custody, the widows and their families were shuttled out of their house in the dead of night and deported to Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan did immediately launch a formal commission with wide-reaching powers soon after the raid, pledging to investigate both the U.S. border breach and bin Laden's presence here. The Abbottabad Commission, as it's come to be known here, has enjoyed unparalleled access to anyone and everyone associated directly or peripherally with either issue, interviewing over 100 witnesses over the last year, including bin Laden's widows, the detained doctor who worked for the CIA, and high-level Pakistani officials.  But there is no working deadline and expectations vary as to how blunt and definitive an account commission members will be able to put forth.

"Given how previous commissions in Pakistan have behaved, I'm not really hopeful that much will come out of this," Bokhari said. "This is not like the 9/11 Commission or anything similar elsewhere in other countries where there's a process and transparency and rule of law."

'Embarrassment'
Durrani, who's been in touch with members of the commission, says the length of time it's taken for them to compile findings speaks to their determination to fulfill their mandate to the best of their ability.

"If the report comes out tomorrow and it's a whitewash, then people will ask -- what have you done?" Durrani said. "They [the commission members] are keen to get to the bottom of this, to find out what happened, why it happened, who's at fault, and what needs to be done so we don't have such embarrassment and such issues in the future."

Slideshow: World reacts to death of Osama bin Laden

Arshad Butt / AP

Osama bin Laden is dead following a military operation in Pakistan and the US has recovered his body, US President Barack Obama announced Sunday night.

Launch slideshow

Driving the investigators' query is a widely-held belief here in Pakistan that bin Laden was never here at all -- that the entire raid was an effort by the U.S. to defame and destabilize Pakistan's security establishment. Residents of Abbottabad with whom NBC News spoke reiterated that skepticism, saying they don't believe the U.S. claim that bin Laden was living in their midst, particularly in the absence of any evidence of his death.

Low expectations
Commission members have been reluctant to speak with the media until their findings are complete, but the head of the commission, retired Supreme Court Judge Javed Iqbal, confirmed to NBC News that one of the key issues his team is investigating is whether bin Laden was ever really here at all.

PhotoBlog: Abbottabad -- One year after Osama bin Laden raid

Despite low expectations for the pending report, Bokhari admits the commission is tasked with an enormously difficult job, one that will have repercussions for generations to come in the form of Pakistan's official narrative of this historic event.

"This is the biggest event in recent history since the fall of the Soviet Union -- 9/11 and its impact, the killing of Osama bin Laden -- so I'm not surprised it's taken them this long to come up with a report," Bokhari said. "It may take decades before anybody can actually come up with a comprehensive view of what was really happening."

The few specifics that have emerged from Pakistan in the last year in effect lead to more questions officials here must attempt to answer, through the commission or otherwise.

The U.S. moved quickly on the message-control front after the Abbottabad raid, releasing selective video clips and pieces of information from the "treasure trove" of evidence seized from bin Laden's compound. An NBC News team was given an exclusive briefing by a senior U.S. counterterrorism official on currently classified intelligence from the raid, including details of the role bin Laden played in al-Qaida from his hideout in Pakistan, who he was in touch with, and more on the life he lived within that compound. Those details will air on Discovery Channel on Tuesday as part of a one-hour special on the anniversary of the U.S. raid.

But the details from within Pakistan have been few and far between. A rare piece of evidence -- a confidential interrogation report of bin Laden's youngest wife, Amal, obtained by NBC News -- did reveal some surprising details about the family's life on the run after the attacks of September 11.

According to the report, Amal told investigators that the family scattered after 9/11, bouncing from house to house and place to place in Pakistan. In her complicated timeline, she moved across multiple residences in the southern mega-city of Karachi, then moved on to Peshawar to link up with her husband. From there, the family moved to Swat, then to Haripur, and finally settled in the Abbottabad home for about six years until the U.S. raid that killed her husband.

"These people are fanatics. They're ideological but keep in mind that they are also very professional at what they do," Bokhari explained. "They're in a business where if you make a small error in judgment it can easily translate to death for many people. There are people waiting for you to make a mistake. You have to be highly disciplined."

Co-conspirators?
But the pace of movement believed to have been followed by bin Laden and his family -- traversing entire provinces in Pakistan, and including rural, tribal, settled, and urban areas while remaining completely undetected -- would be difficult without some sort of network of support. Current and former Pakistani officials and analysts have offered up the possibility of "rogue or retired" elements from within Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment as possible facilitators or co-conspirators helping to hide bin Laden.

The nature of Pakistan's retired uniformed corps, many of whom stay involved with the work of the agencies long after they leave as the new leadership continues to make use of their experience and contacts, albeit in unofficial capacities and with limited authority. As the largest employer in Pakistan, it follows that the Pakistan army also has the largest pool of retirees, some of whom spent significant time working closely with and gaining the trust of jihadi groups in the 1980s and 1990s.

"If it's a retired network of people, what I call the 'Pakistani Blackwater,' that's not that bad. It's bad, but not that bad," Bokhari said. "But if it's someone who's serving, or more than one person, then [Pakistan's leaders] have a leak in [their] system and that's terrifying. Anyone who's a very nationalistic, Pakistani leader who doesn't want al-Qaida or the CIA to be able to get into their house will want to get to the bottom of that."

Bin Laden's widow's condition worsens, brother says

As potentially worrying or damaging as some of the information in the commission's report may be for Pakistan's institutions, it is also widely believed that the organizations cannot survive without taking a hard look at their own potential faults, and admitting mistakes where they did occur. The military and intelligence establishments were already raked over the coals by the government and media after last year's raid in Abbottabad, and are now under the highest level of scrutiny in the country's history.

A failure, at this point, to produce a credible, official version of events will only damage Pakistan, according to Durrani.

"Pakistan wants to move forwards not backwards. They have to get to the bottom of this, in their own interest," he says. "If they don't, it will be another major issue buried in the sands of history. And people will forever be looking for answers."

NBC's Fakhar Rehman contributed to this report from Abbottabad.

Arshad Butt / AP

Pakistani security officials stand next to covered body of British Red Cross worker Khalil Rasjed Dale at the site in Quetta, Pakistan on Sunday.

QUETTA, Pakistan —The beheaded body of a kidnapped British doctor working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was found by the roadside on Sunday in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta, police and Red Cross officials said.

Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, was abducted by suspected militants on Jan 5 while on his way home from work.

"The ICRC condemns in the strongest possible terms this barbaric act," ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord said in a statement. "All of us at the ICRC and at the British Red Cross share the grief and outrage of Khalil's family and friends."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also condemned the killing.

"This was a senseless and cruel act, targeting someone whose role was to help the people of Pakistan, and causing immeasurable pain to those who knew Mr. Dale," Hague said in the statement.

A senior police officer said the Pakistan Taliban had claimed responsibility for the killing, saying a ransom had not been paid.

Police discovered Dale wrapped in plastic near a western bypass road. His name was written on the white plastic bag with black marker.

A sharp knife was used to sever his head from the body," said Safdar Hussain, the first doctor to examine the body. "He was killed about 12 hours ago."

Dale is only the third Westerner killed in such a fashion in Pakistan. The others include Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 and Piotr Stanczak, a Polish geologist, in 2009.

The Pakistan Taliban has been fighting a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani state since its formation in 2007. It is close to al Qaida and it claimed credit for a failed car bomb attempt in New York's Times Square in May 2010.

Quetta is the capital of southwestern Baluchistan, Pakistan's biggest but poorest province, where Baluch separatist militants are fighting a protracted insurgency for more autonomy and control over the area's natural resources.

Pro-Taliban militants are also active in the province, which shares borders with Afghanistan and Iran.

Dale had worked for the ICRC and the British Red Cross in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq before coming to Pakistan. He had been managing a health program for Baluchistan for almost a year when he was abducted, the ICRC statement said.

"We are devastated," Daccord said. "Khalil was a trusted and very experienced Red Cross staff member who significantly contributed to the humanitarian cause."

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/

A car destroyed by the bomb sits outside the premises of ThisDay Newspapers bombed in Abuja on Thursday.

Suicide car bombers targeted the offices of Nigerian newspaper This Day in the capital Abuja and northern city of Kaduna on Thursday, killing at least four people in apparently coordinated strikes.

This Day is based in southern Nigeria and is broadly supportive of President Goodluck Jonathan's government - the main target for Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram, which has killed hundreds of people this year in shootings and bombings.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.

At around 11 a.m. one bomber drove a jeep into the daily's office in Abuja, killing himself and two others, witnesses and the state security service (SSS) said.

At the same time, 90 miles north in Kaduna, a car was stopped from getting into This Day's offices and one of the attackers jumped out.

Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP – Getty Images

A policeman stands in front of the premises of ThisDay newspapers bombed by suicide bombers early in Abuja on Thursday.

"He was immediately challenged by two gallant Nigerians, following which he threw the bomb at them and it detonated, killing them instantly," the SSS said in a statement.

It identified the bomber as Umaru Mustapha, from Maiduguri in Borno state, the home of Boko Haram in the remote northeast of Africa's most populous nation.

Thousands of Nigerians protest fuel prices, as government fears 'anarchy'

Later in the day, authorities reported another explosion in Kaduna. There were no further details.

Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa language means "Western education is sinful", has not previously targeted the press in its bombings. Last October, the sect killed a reporter for state-run television who it said was an informant.

Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP – Getty Images

Police officers scan debris of the engine of the Jeep used to bomb newspaper offices in Abuja, Thursday.

Boko Haram has been fighting a low level insurgency for more than two years and has become the main security menace in Africa's top oil producer. Most attacks have been in the largely Muslim north, well away from the southern oil fields.

This Day angered Muslims a decade ago when one of its columnists suggested the Prophet Mohammad might have wanted to marry a beauty queen. At least 100 people were killed in ensuing riots.

"Horrendous and wicked"
President Jonathan, in Ivory Coast for talks with other West African leaders on a crisis in Mali, said in a statement the attacks on This Day were "misguided, horrendous and wicked."

"The President urged media practitioners not to be dissuaded from carrying out their fearless campaign for peace, justice and equity, as democracy cannot flourish without press freedom," the statement from his media adviser said.

In August last year, Boko Haram carried out a suicide car bombing at the United Nations building in Abuja that killed 25 people and prompted a ramp-up in security measures.

At the scene of the Abuja blast on Thursday, sirens wailed as police and fire fighters rushed in. Smoke billowed from the building, whose windows were all smashed.

Soldiers and police cordoned off the area, while emergency workers evacuated wounded on stretchers to waiting ambulances.

"The suicide bomber came in a jeep and rammed a vehicle into the gate," said Olusegun Adeniyi, chairman of the This Day editorial board. "Two of our security men died, and obviously the suicide bomber died too."

This Day's publisher, Nduka Obaigbena, is a celebrity in Nigeria and puts on music, art and fashion events in cities in around the world.

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Martin Von Krogh / for msnbc.com

American citizen Yonas Fikre has spent the past seven months in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is seeking asylum.

An American citizen who alleges that he was detained and tortured overseas at the behest of the U.S. government — and is now marooned as a result of the U.S. no-fly list — has filed for political asylum in Sweden, he announced with his lawyers on Wednesday.

Yonas Fikre, 33, says he spent more than three months in a Dubai detention center in 2011. In a lengthy Skype interview with msnbc.com, he described sleeping on the concrete floor of a frigid jail cell, and enduring regular interrogation, beatings and stress positions that caused him to collapse or black out.

He was released in September, he says, but is just now going public with his story.

Fikre’s ordeal took place outside the United States — far from his home in Portland, Ore. — but he and his American lawyer say they believe it was orchestrated by the FBI in connection with an investigation in Portland. And they maintain that Fikre’s inclusion on the no-fly list — which bars him from boarding U.S.-bound flights — has been used as a tool to coerce information, not because he presents a risk to U.S. flights.

"There is a practice and policy by the FBI to gratuitously deny the rights of American Muslims, particularly naturalized immigrant Muslims when they want to get more information," said Thomas Nelson, a Portland attorney representing Fikre. "In the case of Mr. Fikre …  we believe and will allege that they also engaged in torture by proxy. This is shocking. This is a dark day for America."

Limited scope of no-fly list
The government, citing security reasons, will not say why any individual is on the no-fly list or even confirm that they are included. However, the names are rigorously screened and regularly reviewed, according to a spokesman at the Terrorist Screening Center, a division of the FBI that maintains watch lists.

The Department of Justice reviewed Fikre’s case in response to a complaint from Nelson on behalf of Fikre and two others clients on the no-fly list, and said that it did not find cause for action.

"Based on our review, we have concluded that no action by this Office is warranted," said a letter from the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility dated March 28. “We are referring your correspondence to the FBI’s inspection division for whatever action it deems appropriate."

Security experts say the intent of the no-fly list is quite limited — to protect U.S. aviation from attack.

"Its principal purpose is to keep certain people who have been identified off of U.S. airlines. …  It doesn’t involve arresting people," said Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president of the Rand Corp., a security think tank, and former member of the White House commission on aviation safety and security. "It is not a fugitive list."

He said it would not be surprising if law enforcers used getting off the no-fly list as an inducement for recruiting informants, but it would be considered an abuse if they were included on the list in order to pressure them.

The FBI office in Portland said it could not discuss specifics of the case, due to protections provided to Americans by the U.S. Privacy Act.

"I can tell you that the FBI trains its agents very specifically and very thoroughly about what is acceptable under U.S. law," said Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman for the FBI Portland field office. "To do anything counter to that training is counterproductive — we risk legal liability and potentially losing a criminal case in court."

The problem for Fikre and others is that there is no way to dispute the information that put them on the list in the first place.

Nelson says Fikre’s ordeal fits a pattern among Muslim Americans, including several clients, who discover they are on the no-fly list while they are out of the United States — and are then  asked to submit to questioning, with no access to legal counsel, in return for their travel rights.

Related reporting from msnbc.com

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Far-flung FBI encounter
In April 2010 Fikre was in Sudan, where he arrived several months earlier to set up a trading company. He was summoned to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, he says, ostensibly to attend a luncheon with other Americans to be briefed on security amid election-related turmoil in the country. But when he arrived Fikre was instead met with a grilling by two men who identified themselves as FBI agents from Portland, according to his account.

In a session lasting three to four hours, Fikre says, the two men questioned him about people and activities at As-Saber Mosque,  where he prays back in Portland. They asked about the imam and people who attend the mosque, the content of sermons and meetings and even details about the layout of the building.

Fikre says they made it clear that they wanted him to go back to Portland as an FBI informant in an unspecified investigation.

Fikre says  that when he told the men he didn’t want to work for the FBI, they countered by asking, "Don't you love your family? Don't you want to make real money?"  They also indicated that if he worked for them, they could help him get off of the "no fly" list — which he says was a surprise because this meeting was the first he had heard that his name was on the no-fly list.

The details of this conversation could not be verified. However, Fikre has an email that he says came from one of the men, David Noordeloos, after Fikre refused a second meeting: "Thanks for meeting with us last week in Sudan,” it says. “While we hope to get your side of issues we keep hearing about, the choice is yours to make. The time to help yourself is now." Fikre said he considered this communication a threat.

Fikre says he chose Sudan as a business destination because his family had lived there when he was a child, after fleeing civil war in Eritrea. In 1991 his immediate family immigrated to the United States and later became citizens, but he still has relatives in Sudan. He says the agents told him couldn’t do business in Sudan due to U.S. sanctions, so he made his way to the United Arab Emirates, where he had a friend, and started over.

Lost to the world
But on June 1, 2011, in Abu Dhabi, Fikre was arrested by non-uniformed secret police, blindfolded and taken to a secret state security prison with no explanation, according to Fikre’s account.

Day after day under detention in the UAE city, he said, he was interrogated about events and people in Portland, especially those in the As-Saber mosque and its imam — answering many of the very same questions posed by the FBI agents a year earlier, he says, but in even greater detail.

He says  that in a particularly brutal session, the prison interrogators prodded him to talk about a new case that was unfolding in Portland — that of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, who had been arrested in late 2010 by the Portland FBI in a sting operation for an attempted bombing at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony.  

Fikre  says he told his questioners he didn’t know Mohamud but recognized the younger man in news reports as a member of As-Saber Mosque. He says he knew nothing of Mohamud’s ideology or plans.

For about 10 weeks, Fikre says, he felt he was lost to the world.

He was in held in solitary confinement in a frigid cell without bedding, he says, subjected to bright lights, stress positions, sleep deprivation and beatings around his head, chest, soles of his feet and hands, and threatened with strangulation.

Fikre's captors urged him to work for the FBI and told him that if he agreed to do so he would be freed, according to his account. When Fikre suggested that the UAE interrogators were working for the FBI, they beat him more severely, he says.

Consular visit
Three weeks after Fikre went missing, Nelson, the Portland attorney, launched a search on behalf of worried relatives, contacting officials in the UAE and the U.S. State Department. On July 27, the U.S. Embassy located Fikre and said he was being detained by the UAE State Security Department, email records show.

The next day, a U.S. Embassy staffer was allowed to meet with Fikre.

But Fikre says that the UAE prison officials who also attended the meeting had warned him in advance not to discuss his poor treatment or face further punishment. They also promised that if he cooperated, he would be released within days.

During the meeting Fikre says he tried to subtly signal that he was in trouble, according to his account. But he says the U.S. representative, a woman named Marwa, did not appear to pick up on those signals.

"Mr. Fikre was reported to be in good spirits and did not report any issues of maltreatment," according to an email message from a communications officer at the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi to the office of Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon congressman who had aided Nelson’s inquiries about the case.  The message, obtained by msnbc.com noted that the embassy understood Fikre was not charged with any crime and should be released soon.

Fikre’s incarceration, questioning and abuse continued for nearly seven weeks after that meeting, he says. There were no more visits from the consulate.

He was finally released on Sept. 14, and — because he could not board a flight to the United States – he went to Sweden, where he is staying with a relative while Swedish officials review his request  for asylum.

"I used to take great pride in being an American," Fikre said. "I believed that I have a very powerful country that will take care of me no matter where I am. … (Now) I feel like a second-class citizen or not even a citizen. I didn’t get any help from my government."

Fikre and Nelson say they believe the Sudan meeting and the detention were arranged by the FBI to bolster its investigation and prosecution of Mohamud, the would-be Christmas tree bomber.

How names get put on the no-fly list

The FBI had been tracking Mohamud since he was about 16, because of email communications that officials say expressed his desire to pursue violent jihad, according to an affidavit for his arrest.

Sting operation
An undercover FBI agent first made contact with Mohamud in June 2010 in the sting operation that led to his arrest in November.

On Nov. 26, 2010, apparently believing he had connected with Islamic extremists, Mohamud allegedly drove a car he believed contained explosives to a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland and then attempted to detonate it with a cellphone. The explosives and the detonator were fakes supplied by the FBI, which then swept in and arrested him.

Mohamud's trial, scheduled to begin in October, is expected to be a battle over entrapment — whether the sting operation averted a deadly attack or provoked action on the part of a disillusioned young man.

Fikre is one of several Portland Muslims —all of whom sometimes pray at As-Saber Mosque –  stranded overseas in recent months by the no-fly list. Jamal Tarhuni, 55, and Mustafa Elogbi, 60, both longtime U.S. citizens, were able to return home from trips to Libya only with the intervention of lawyers. They too say they were pursued by Portland FBI agents for questioning while in North Africa.

The men were reunited with their families in Portland but remain on the no-fly list. In Tarhuni’s case, the designation means he cannot complete aid projects he was working on in Libya with the nonprofit Medical Teams International, and he takes trains to meetings across the country.

Video: Waiting for husband to come home

These men, and others named on the no-fly list must be "considered a threat to aircraft, or be operationally capable of carrying out a terrorist attack, and using air travel to get somewhere for the purpose of conducting a terrorist attack, or be a threat to U.S. installations or troops worldwide," said the spokesman for the Terrorist Screening Center.

Tarhuni, Elogbi and Fikre are likely to file a lawsuit against the Department of Justice to challenge that claim and recover their travel rights, said Nelson.

But Fikre, unlike the other two, is not eager to return to the United States. He said that whatever action he takes will be from the relative security of Sweden, which he hopes will grant him a permanent haven.

"The most important thing for me is to find out why they did to me what they did, Fikri said, speaking from a relative’s home in Sweden. “It’s always in the back of your mind, you know, you wonder why this happened to me.  And if you get the answer to that question, you could move on, you know.  But something like this happened to you, you always are going to wonder — I wonder why this happened and who was really involved, who was really running the show behind the scenes."

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Aamir Qureshi / AFP - Getty Images

Hafiz Saeed, who is suspected of masterminding the attack on India's financial capital Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166 people, leaves a news conference in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Wednesday. Released from house arrest in 2009, Saeed is a free man.

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan --  Who wants to be a millionaire? In Pakistan, all you have to do is give the United States information leading to the arrest or conviction of Hafiz Saeed -- an Islamist leader whose whereabouts are usually not a mystery. Saeed is suspected of masterminding the attack on India's financial capital Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

U.S. authorities placed a bounty on Monday of up to $10 million on Saeed, but on Wednesday he was openly wandering across Pakistan's military garrison town of Rawalpindi, hanging out with some of the most anti-American characters in the country.

"This is a laughable, absurd announcement. Here I am in front of everyone, not hiding in a cave," Saeed told a news conference at a hotel -- a mere 40-minute drive from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and just across from the headquarters of Pakistan's army, recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. aid.

Saeed operates openly in Pakistan from his base in the eastern city of Lahore and travels widely, giving public speeches and appearing on TV talk shows. He has been one of the leading figures of the Difa-e-Pakistan, or Defense of Pakistan Council, which has held a series of large demonstrations in recent months against the U.S. and India.

"Now that he has a price on his head, for this money anyone is willing to do anything," said Javed, a 55-year-old government employee who declined to give his full name. "Once people see the money there is no saving him, only God can save him."

In Washington, U.S. officials said the decision to offer the $10 million reward under the State Department's longstanding "Rewards for Justice" program came after months of discussions among U.S. agencies involved in counter-terrorism.

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Khuram Parvez / Reuters

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

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The $10 million figure signifies major U.S. interest in Saeed. Only three other militants, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar, fetch that high a bounty. There is a $25 million bounty on the head of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

At the same time it targeted Saeed, the U.S. government also offered a smaller reward -- $2 million -- for Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, whom it said was the second in command of the militant group founded by Saeed, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

As with many militants sought by the United States -- and unlike Saeed -- Makki's whereabouts are unknown to U.S. authorities. The bounty would be paid for information leading to his location. Makki is Saeed's brother-in-law.

Pakistan banned LeT 2002 under U.S. pressure, but it operates with relative freedom under the name of its social welfare wing Jamaat-ud-Dawwa — even doing charity work using government money.

The U.S. has designated both groups as foreign terrorist organizations. Intelligence officials and terrorism experts say LeT has expanded its focus beyond India in recent years and has plotted attacks in Europe and Australia. Some have called it "the next al-Qaida" and fear it could set its sights on the U.S.

Bin Laden widows sentenced to jail

The announcement of a reward for Saeed comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Pakistan and is likely to increase pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar. It is also likely to please India, the target of numerous LeT attacks.

'US is acting like it's Clint Eastwood'
Released from house arrest in 2009, Saeed is a free man in Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally and one of the world's most unstable countries. The United States, which sees Saeed as a major security threat, is hoping the bounty will trigger a stampede of Pakistanis who come forward with information that could lead to his arrest and conviction. Pakistani officials say Saeed and Jamaat-ud-Dawwa have been cleared by Pakistani courts.

They say they don't understand what all the fuss is about and complain the Americans are acting like cowboys. "The United States is acting like it's Clint Eastwood," said a senior security official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's as if they just want to ride a horse into Pakistan and just drag people like him away."

Another security official nodded in agreement while a television repeatedly showed footage of Saeed. "What would happen if we put a bounty on President (Barack) Obama's head because American drone strikes sometimes kill Pakistani civilians?" The drone strikes, which the United States regards as a highly effective and accurate weapon against militants, are deeply unpopular in Pakistan.

Saeed, a short, bearded man with a quiet but intense demeanor and henna-dyed hair, has turned the drone strikes and other explosive issues like the presence of Western troops in Afghanistan into a rallying cry against the United States. That has won him support on Pakistan's streets.

"He wants the drone strikes to stop. He wants the bloodshed in Afghanistan to end," said a senior police official in Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi. "Hafiz Saeed isn't saying anything wrong. In fact, he's a patriot."

Some Pakistanis could not understand why the bounty was issued while Saeed is in plain view. His capture may ultimately depend on cooperation from Pakistan, often accused by the West of supporting militant groups. Pakistan denies the charges.

"It is unlikely that anything will come out of this. You put bounties on people who are hiding, not those walking around free," said businessman Haris Chaudhry. "It's ridiculous."

Bin Laden widow denies details of leaked statements

Saeed, 61, founded LeT in the 1990s and it became one of South Asia's best-funded militant organizations. He abandoned its leadership after India accused it of being behind an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. India has long called for Saeed's capture, blaming the LeT for the Mumbai carnage. He denies any wrongdoing and links to militants.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means Army of the Pure, belongs to the Salafi movement, an ultraconservative branch of Islam similar to the Wahabi sect — the main Islamic branch in Saudi Arabia from which al-Qaida partly emerged. Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaida operate separately but have been known to help each other when their paths intersect

Saeed, a former professor of Islamic studies, seemed unfazed by the bounty. As stern-faced bodyguards with AK-47 assault rifles kept a close watch, he ridiculed the Americans during his press conference at The Flashman's Hotel.

He was flanked by some of Pakistan's most hard line Islamists who all belong to an alliance of groups campaigning for a break in ties with the United States and India. They included Sami-ul-Haq, a cleric best known as "the father of the Taliban" for his historical ties to the Afghan militant movement. Another member, Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's intelligence service, was also present. On the edge of Islamabad, a Pakistani intelligence officer who has handled militant groups for decades, shook his head as he pondered the U.S. reward.

"If the guy who decided to do this could get a job in the State Department, then I could be the president of the United States," the chuckling operative, wearing a suit and puffing on a cigarette, said.

"God bless America."

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Gerard Julien / AFP - Getty Images

Members of the French National Police Intervention Group (GIPN) arrest a suspected member of a radical Islamist group in Marseille, Wednesday.

PARIS -- Elite police arrested 10 suspected Islamists in early-morning raids across France on Wednesday in a clampdown ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy after seven people were killed by an al-Qaida-inspired gunman last month.

The DCRI domestic intelligence service, supported by elite police commandos, carried out arrests in the southern cities of Marseille and Valence, two towns in the southwest and in the northeastern town of Roubaix, a police source said.

The raids follow the arrest of 19 people on March 30, a week after police snipers shot dead gunman Mohamed Merah, who killed three Jewish school children, a rabbi and three soldiers in a spate of attacks around Toulouse.

"Those arrested have a similar profile to Mohamed Merah," a local police source said. "They are isolated individuals, who are self-radicalized."

Story: Sarkozy: Toulouse shootings caused 9/11-like trauma; 19 Islamist suspects arrested

He said the suspects were tracked on Islamist forums expressing extreme views and said they were preparing to travel to areas including Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Sahel belt to wage jihad (holy war).

Some of those arrested had already been and returned to France, the source said.

Sarkozy re-election bid
Sarkozy, who is facing an uphill task to be re-elected president in an April-May vote, has vowed to root out any form of militancy following Merah's killing spree.

Thirteen of the 19 people arrested last Friday are alleged to have links to radical French Islamist group Forsane Alizza. They are being investigated on suspicion of terrorism, the Paris public prosecutor said on Tuesday.

Wednesday's raids were not linked to either those arrests or the Merah attacks, the source said.

Story: Father of Toulouse gunman wants to sue France for killing son

The BBC reported that security has become a major issue in the election campaign, as Mr Sarkozy battles to overcome his main rival, Francois Hollande two-and-a-half weeks before the April 22 first-round vote.

Sarkozy, a former interior minister, has been accused by some opponents of capitalizing on the Islamist threat for electoral purposes even though only 20 percent of voters consider it their main concern, surveys show.

Speaking on RTL radio, Hollande, who is leading Sarkozy in polls, declined to be drawn on whether he thought the raids were politically driven.

"If there are suspicions and risks, then they must be acted upon," Hollande said. "But why do it after a terrorist act? I am not questioning what is being done, but we could have done more before," he said.

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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