Airport bomb plot raises security’s Achilles heel
There are still many questions about the security issues raised by the recent air freight bomb plot but one aspect of it has a certain outcome: It will cost more for future protection from similar incidents.
Cargo planes have “always been the Achilles heel” of aviation security, Chris Yates, security editor at Jane’s Aviation, told the Daily Telegraph.
"The whole issue of cargo security has been up in the air for a long time, almost since 2001," said Yates.
Security forces worldwide believe Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri — an Al-Qaeda fighter who once blew up his own brother — is the mastermind behind the bombs, and was plotting a "new Lockerbie" with his cargo plane explosives, according to newspaper reports.
Both devices found on cargo craft were set to travel for a time in the holds of passenger jets, and were likely part of a plot to bring down a major airliner like the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people in 1988.
Two air packages containing bombs — both sent from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago — were intercepted in Britain and Dubai last week.
One of the packages was found on a UPS cargo plane at East Midlands Airport, north of London. The other was discovered in a cleverly concealed computer printer cartridge in a parcel at a FedEx facility in Dubai.
“The plot could speed up calls for wider use of sophisticated imaging technology designed to detect explosives, which is not standard, but freight firms are reluctant to bear the full cost,” Reuters reported.
"The technology used for screening of cargo, typically by X-ray… doesn’t have explosive detection capacity, but it does enable them to find most things," said Norman Shanks, a former head of security at the British airports operator BAA.
“This is the first time a terrorist group has used a US air freight company to transport a parcel containing explosives and a detonator,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, a global consultant on terror.
Experts cautioned that cargo, even when loaded onto passenger planes, is sometimes lightly inspected or completely unexamined, particularly when it comes from countries without well-developed aviation security systems.
One particular vulnerability: trusted companies that regularly do business with freight shippers are allowed to ship parcels as “secure” cargo that is not automatically subjected to further checks.
But even where rules are rigidly spelled out, enforcement can be lax.
A US government team that visited cargo sites around the world last year found a wide range of glaring defects, said John Shingleton, managing director of Handy Shipping Guide, an industry information service.
“They walked into a warehouse where supposedly secure cargo was,” he said, declining to say where the site was. “Generally security is high, but if you think it’s perfect you’re kidding yourself.”
The plot puts worldwide attention on security just as cargo companies struggle to maintain a recovery in air shipments seen over the past year, Reuters said.
By David Wilkening
David
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