We’ve all heard of bomb dogs, who sniff out explosive materials. It appears al Qaeda has put a sick new twist on this, and made dog bombs — or at least attempted to do so.

The Paris newspaper, Le Figaro, has reported that two years ago, al Qaeda bomb makers snatched two stray dogs off the streets of Iraq, opened them up, and stitched powerful explosives and detonators in each dog. They then placed the dogs in kennels for a flight bound for the US, according to the New York Post.

Since dogs traveling from Baghdad to the US aren’t that uncommon, thanks to rescue missions, it wasn’t seen as odd for dogs to be making the journey. At least not until US soldiers in the cargo area of the airport noticed that the dogs were dead.

The dog bomb plot had become a bomb of a different sort.

These poor animals must have suffered tremendously after (and very possibly, during) the surgery, and did not live to house the mechanisms that would kill those aboard the plane and wreak terror in the skies.

Hiding bomb materials seems to be on the rise for the terrorist group. Explosives allegedly planted by Yemini al Qaeda operatives were found in computer printer cartridges last month before they had a chance to blow up on US-bound cargo jets. And dogs aren’t the only living creatures who have housed explosives. Last year, an al Qaeda suicide bomber hid explosive materials in a body cavity below his waist. The bomber did not survive, but the man he was trying to kill sustained only minor injuries. (It turns out the intended victim, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, helped stop the printer cartridge disasters last month.)

The information on the terrorists’ dog bombs reportedly was widely circulated to intelligence and air security agencies around the world so they could be on the lookout for dogs who might be surgically changed into terror weapons. I’m not sure why it wasn’t made public until now, but there you have it. If the operatives had not done such a crude and cruel job on the botched surgeries, the dogs may have survived long enough to let the terrorists’ plot unfold. And that would have been an even greater tragedy…