Increased security

I should be getting excited about departure in 24 hours; unusually for me I'm wondering what's going to go wrong.

Luckily my Belgian ATC colleagues aren't planning any wildcat strikes tomorrow, thank you, as that would be quite difficult to work around as I need to get to Brussels in order to come back again on the first leg of the run. 

So having felt a bit smug that by going West I'd be avoiding anything unpredicted, I get home late last night to find Mrs Metty pointing out on the Sky News tickertape that there's increased security to the US.  Oh joy, and I'm departing on 4-July.

Security is being tightened at airports with direct flights into the US - including some in the UK - in response to US warnings of a "credible threat".

The UK transport department confirmed airport security was being stepped up.

Neither UK nor US authorities specified what new measures would be involved but the UK said most passengers should not experience "significant disruption".

It comes amid US media reports that al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria and Yemen are developing bombs to smuggle on planes.

The department did not specify which airports or what countries would be affected, nor did it say what triggered the enhanced measures.

US officials have consistently warned about the capabilities of Ibrahim al-Asiri, an alleged bomb-maker for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

"We are sharing recent and relevant information with our foreign allies and are consulting the aviation industry," DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement.

U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday the Obama administration was pushing for increased security precautions at European airports because of concerns that al Qaeda operatives in Syria and Yemen had teamed up to develop bombs that could be smuggled onto planes.

US officials said that the tighter security was not the result of a specific threat but was a response to potentially new bomb designs that might not be picked up by existing procedures. An official said that the current US focus was on flights to the US from Europe and the Middle East.

Many of the existing security procedures at airports were developed in response to Richard Reid, who attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoes in 2001, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber” who tried to set off an explosive on Christmas Day, 2009, on a flight to Detroit.

US officials have consistently warned about the capabilities of Ibrahim al-Asiri, an alleged bomb-maker for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based affiliate of the terrorist network. In recent weeks, they have also warned that AQAP could be collaborating with the Nusra Front, a group based in Syria, to produce bombs designed to evade detection.

ABC News reported last month that US officials believe AQAP has been trying to develop “non-metallic” explosives.

At the same time, Obama administration officials have also warned about the potential threat from Americans and Europeans who have joined jihadi groups fighting in Syria’s civil war, who might then seek to conduct terrorist attacks when they return home.

Source: Reuters