The US is reportedly planning to overhaul security at its airports and to demand its overseas partners do the same, after receiving intelligence that militant groups in the Middle East are preparing a new generation of non-metallic explosives that could be carried undetected on to commercial flights.
ABC News quoted a defence source as saying the threat is “different and more disturbing” than previous plots, which involved explosives hidden in toothpaste, shoes and ink cartridges.
The developing danger is thought to have been discussed by senior intelligence officials at the White House last week, according to ABC. The Department of Homeland Security is expected to issue new security instructions to international airports where flights into the US originate, including closer inspection of travellers’ electronics and shoes, more random passenger screenings and several other undisclosed security activities. It will almost certainly lead to delays for transatlantic travellers.
The new directives reportedly stem from intelligence focused on Jabhat al-Nusra, a group of radical militants based in Syria, who are believed to be working with members of al-Qa’ida’s franchise in Yemen, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, to fashion “creative” designs for explosives to be used to bring down planes bound for the US or Europe. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula was responsible for the so-called “underwear bomb”, a thwarted plot to target a flight from the Netherlands to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
President Barack Obama has said his administration is particularly concerned by the presence of foreign militants fighting in Syria and Iraq, who could board flights to the US without a visa, using their European passports. In an interview with NBC, Mr Obama said: “We’ve seen Europeans who are sympathetic to their cause travelling into Syria and now may travel into Iraq, getting battle-hardened. Then they come back.”
News of the threat comes after the militant group Isis declared the formation of an Islamic state in the regions of Iraq and Syria that it controls.
The US has already sent several hundred troops and military advisers to Iraq in response to the Isis advance, while Mr Obama last week asked Congress to approve $500m (£293m) for arming and training of moderate Syrian opposition fighters.
The funding represents a ramping-up of US engagement in the three-year civil war in Syria, where until now the CIA has been secretly training rebel groups to take on both the Assad regime and extreme jihadist groups.
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