government has announced that visitors from several countries will be subject to new airport security screening procedures.
Beginning Monday, all passengers flying from or via at least 14 countries, including Nigeria and Yemen, will be patted down and have all carry-on luggage searched before boarding flights bound for the US.
The move is part of the security crackdown following the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man, was arrested after being accused of carrying a bomb sewn into his underwear on to a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
Abdulmutallab, who had got through security screening, was subdued by passengers and crew after allegedly attempting, unsuccessfully, to detonate the bomb on board the plane.
Barack Obama, the US president, said on Friday that it appeared Abdulmutallab was a member of al-Qaeda and had been trained and equipped by the group in Yemen.
The US government is investigating why its intelligence agencies failed to stop Abdulmutallab from boarding the plane but on Sunday, John Brennan, the deputy national security adviser, said that while some errors were made in tracking him, there was no one piece of evidence to help officials connect all the dots.
‘Beyond borders’
“Because effective aviation security must begin beyond our borders … every individual flying into the US from anywhere in the world travelling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening,” the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said in a statement.
“The directive also increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on US bound international flights,” the US agency responsible for air security measures added.
The US currently lists Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria as “state sponsors of terrorism” but the air travel directive also includes Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen, the Reuters news agency cited an Obama administration official as saying.
Meanwhile, London’s Heathrow airport – Europe’s busiest – is the latest airport to ramp up security by introducing full body scanners to screen passengers.
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said on Sunday the authorities were acting “quickly” to introduce the new measures because a new form of explosive used by al-Qaeda “is not being identified by ordinary machines”.
“They [passengers] will see checks for explosive traces – that will be done on hand luggage. Transit passengers will also be checked as well as transfer passengers,” he said, adding that he hoped it would not lead to longer queues at airports.
The Netherlands announced on Wednesday that body scanners would be used on all flights from Amsterdam’s Schipol airport to the US.