The government's Cobra emergency committee is meeting today to discuss a response to the Yemen-based plot to send bombs on US cargo planes, as Yemeni authorities promise to increase airport security.
The Cobra committee, chaired by David Cameron, must decide whether the apparent security flaw revealed by the failure of initial tests to detect the explosive PETN hidden carefully within printer cartridges requires a new regime of checks for air freight, or even for passengers.
After it emerged that one of the bombs had travelled on two Qatar Airways passenger flights before being detected in Dubai, British counter-terrorism officials warned that al-Qaida had exposed a serious vulnerability in aviation security.
Yemen's civil aviation security watchdog has rushed through new security measures and is promising to share intelligence with other nations, the country's official Saba news agency said today.
"It approved application of unusual check methods on outgoing packages from Yemeni airports in a way to ensure security of civil aviation," the report said.
Britain has, along with several other nations, already banned unaccompanied air freight from Yemen, while FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS), the US companies which carried the suspect printer cartridges, have halted business in the country.
The chief executive of Ryanair today warned against the rushed introduction of "ludicrous" new security measures in the wake of the plot. Michael O'Leary said he feared "another huge lurch by the securicrats into making travel even more uncomfortable and an even more tedious ordeal for the travelling public".
The international hunt for those behind the plot is focusing on a Saudi-born extremist linked to al-Qaida in Yemen, who is also accused of constructing a bomb planted on a US plane on Christmas Day.
Security officials believe the bombmaker was Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who is considered to be one of the organisation's most radical adherents after sending his brother on a failed suicide mission with a bomb in his body cavity.
John Brennan, the Obama administration's counter-terrorism adviser, said the explosives "bear all of the hallmarks" of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which was responsible for the failed attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day using explosives hidden in a Nigerian suicide bomber's underwear.
Brennan said the latest bombs, disguised in printer cartridges and found at East Midlands airport and Dubai, were "very sophisticated". "It's very similar in terms of the types of materials and the construction to some other devices that we have seen," he said. Brennan added he agreed with British officials that the bombs were intended to bring down planes in flight, even though they were addressed to synagogues in Chicago.
American officials are quietly conceding that although the bombs were tracked down after a tip-off from Saudi intelligence, the fact that a loss of life was averted was down to a certain amount of luck.
Qatar Airways said the bomb discovered in Dubai on its way to Chicago with FedEx had been put on a passenger flight from Yemen's capital, Sana'a, to Doha in Qatar before being transferred to another plane to Dubai.
The Guardian
