Experts at the FBI's explosives lab in Virginia are picking apart a sophisticated new al-Qaida bomb to figure out whether it could have slipped past airport security and taken down a commercial airplane.

U.S. officials say the unexploded bomb represents an intelligence prize, the result of a covert CIA operation in Yemen that thwarted a suicide mission in recent weeks.

The device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

The device is an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009, The Associated Press reported.