Terror and Aviation Security

[al-Canine]

Government Report on U.S. Aviation Warns of Security Holes

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, March 13 - Despite a huge investment in security, the American aviation system remains vulnerable to attack by Al Qaeda and other jihadist terrorist groups, with noncommercial planes and helicopters offering terrorists particularly tempting targets, a confidential government report concludes.

Intelligence indicates that Al Qaeda may have discussed plans to hijack chartered planes, helicopters and other general aviation aircraft for attacks because they are less well-guarded than commercial airliners, according to a previously undisclosed 24-page special assessment on aviation security by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security two weeks ago.

But commercial airliners are also "likely to remain a target and a platform for terrorists," the report says, and members of Al Qaeda appear determined to study and test new American security measures to "uncover weaknesses."

The assessment comes as the Bush administration, with a new intelligence structure and many new counterterrorism leaders in place, is taking stock of terrorists' capabilities and of the country's ability to defend itself.

While Homeland Security and the F.B.I. routinely put out advisories on aviation issues, the special joint assessment is an effort to give a broader picture of the state of knowledge of all issues affecting aviation security, officials said.

The analysis appears to rely on intelligence gathered from sources overseas and elsewhere about Al Qaeda and other jihadist and Islamic-based terrorist groups.

A separate report issued last month by Homeland Security concluded that developing a clear framework for prioritizing possible targets - a task many Democrats say has lagged - is critical because "it is impossible to protect all of the infrastructure sectors equally across the entire United States."

The aviation sector has received the majority of domestic security investments since the Sept. 11 attacks, with more than $12 billion spent on upgrades like devices to detect explosives, armored cockpit doors, federalized air screeners and additional air marshals.

Indeed, some members of Congress and security experts now consider airplanes to be so well fortified that they say it is time to shift resources to other vulnerable sectors, like ports and power plants.

In the area of rail safety, for instance, Democrats are pushing a $1.1 billion plan to plug what they see as glaring vulnerabilities. "This is a disaster waiting to happen," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said last week at a Senate hearing marking the one-year anniversary of the deadly train bombings in Madrid.

Still, the new aviation assessment, examining dozens of airline incidents both before and after the Sept. 11 attacks, makes clear that counterterrorism officials still consider the aviation industry to be perhaps the prime target for another major attack because of the spectacular nature of such strikes.

The assessment, which showed that the F.B.I. handled more than 500 criminal investigations involving aircraft in 2003, will likely serve as a guide for considering further security restrictions in general aviation and other areas considered particularly vulnerable, the officials said.

The report, dated Feb. 25, was distributed internally to federal and state counterterrorism and aviation officials, and a copy was obtained by The Times. It warns that security upgrades since the Sept. 11 attacks have "reduced, but not eliminated" the prospect of similar attacks.

"Spectacular terrorist attacks can generate an outpouring of support for the perpetrators from sympathizers and terrorism sponsors with similar agendas," the report said. "The public fear resulting from a terrorist hijacking or aircraft bombing also serves as a powerful motivator for groups seeking to further their causes."

The report detailed particular vulnerabilities in what it called "the largely unregulated" area of general aviation, which includes corporate jets, private planes and other unscheduled aircraft.

"As security measures improve at large commercial airports, terrorists may choose to rent or steal general aviation aircraft housed at small airports with little or no security," the report said.

The report also said that Al Qaeda "has apparently considered the use of helicopters as an alternative to recruiting operatives for fixed-wing aircraft operations." The maneuverability and "nonthreatening appearance" of helicopters, even when flying at low altitudes above urban areas, make them attractive targets for terrorists to conduct suicide attacks on landmarks or to spray toxins below, the report said.

The assessment does not identify who might be in a position to carry out such domestic attacks.

While law enforcement officials have spoken repeatedly about their concerns over so-called sleeper cells operating within the United States, a separate F.B.I. report first disclosed last week by ABC News indicated that evidence pointing to the existence of such cells was inconclusive.

The question of how well the government is protecting airline travelers surfaced again last month after the disclosure in a Sept. 11 commission investigation that in the months leading up to the attack, federal officials received 52 warnings about Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, some warning specifically about hijackings and suicide operations.

Federal officials now say they have taken a number of steps to tighten security for helicopters, chartered flights and the like in response to perceived threats, as they did last August in temporarily ordering federal security guards and tougher screening for helicopter tours in the New York City area.

Rear Adm. David M. Stone, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security who oversees the Transportation Security Administration, said that "the report validates T.S.A.'s sense of urgency in our daily efforts to secure aviation, and that same sense of urgency can be found in our work securing every other mode of transportation."

The report also sought to codify the various responsibilities for aviation security in the increasingly complex labyrinth of federal agencies, and it examined 33 terrorist plots against airplanes inside and out of the United States over the years.

Of the more than 500 criminal cases involving aircraft handled by the F.B.I. in 2003, two were hijackings in the United States involving flights from Cuba that landed in Florida. More than 300 episodes involved undeclared weapons or other problems at screening and security checkpoints, while 175 cases were triggered by on-board interference or threats against crew members, often involving alcohol.

In one case, a passenger sprayed perfume at a flight attendant "in a hostile manner," the report said.

Copyright 2005*The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/politics/14terror.html?

[Petronas]

Open letter from the President of Air Security International regarding the article posted below on 03/14:

Views on General Aviation Security

The story that was published in the New York Times on Monday, March 14, 2005 regarding general aviation security has become very controversial among the major players in the general aviation industry. Without putting forth my own opinion as to whether the story is accurate or the result of speculation, I must note that the main issues have been ignored.

The fact is that we are operating today under the shadow of terrorism. I am absolutely sure that every operator, corporate security department and executive has done everything possible to reduce vulnerability. The writer of the story in question suggested that al-Qaeda might have discussed plans to use general aviation as a tool for their next attack. We need not question this information, as it is very obvious that aviation has been the preferred tool for terrorists since the late 1960s.

The free world, in its response to terrorism, has not taken enough security measures, which is why the disastrous events of 9/11 occurred. As a result of the tragedy, U.S. authorities and the various world governments imposed regulations on commercial aviation in order to minimize its vulnerability.

General aviation has been left on its own to determine how to upgrade security measures in light of the threat. It is our civil obligation to make sure that the operators and the users of general aviation are able to operate safely, and ensure that complacency does not lead to vulnerability in light of the existing security threats.

It is my opinion that the New York Times story should be used as a wake-up call to encourage general aviation to review its security measures and to endorse security management for aviation operations. The following proposed steps deserve serious consideration:

Arrange for a security survey of your home hangar and aviation facilities, including in remote areas. This audit will allow operators to check their readiness response to potential act of terrorism.

Check security conditions at the FBOs that are usually used by the operators -- consider using only FBOs with sufficient security or add your own security coverage if necessary.

Train your flight department, operators and even the travelers, in security management and preventive measures.

Check your security manual and verify that it been updated and has the required response to the potential threats

It is highly recommended that the crew use a security checklist to ensure that the operation runs under security management

International operators should consider upgrading their security coverage by appointing a guard to watch the aircraft if they cannot verify security conditions abroad.

Know your destination before you go in order to make sure that transportation and accommodations on your entire itinerary are of the required security level.

It is always better to be proactive and prepared. A recovery plan, as good as it may be, cannot repair the damage incurred from an attack.

Issy Boim
President
Air Security International, L.P.

[al-Canine]

LAX Resigned to Long Lines, Despite Cloud of Terrorism

Suggestions in a Rand security study are too costly to implement any time soon, officials say.

By Jennifer Oldham
Times Staff Writer

Despite warnings by security experts that long lines at Los Angeles International Airport are vulnerable to a terrorist attack, airport officials have concluded that the staff cannot be added to significantly shorten queues in the next few years.

Rand Corp. recommended last fall that airlines and federal officials hire more people to speed travelers from sidewalks and terminal lobbies into the more secure gate areas as the quickest and cheapest way to protect LAX passengers.

But in documents obtained by The Times, the airport's top official advised the City Council that a third more airline workers and screeners would be needed — an increase that's not feasible. And even if cash-strapped airlines could hire additional staff, there wouldn't be enough ticket counter space for them, airport officials said.

But Rand insisted that the urgency of reducing lines at the world's fifth-busiest airport remained.

"It's still the recommended thing to do," said Donald Stevens, a senior engineer at Rand and lead author of the Santa Monica-based research institute's September study.

Long lines at airports are "the single greatest vulnerability that we have in the domestic U.S. at the moment," said aviation consultant Billie Vincent, a former Federal Aviation Administration security chief.

The General Accounting Office released a report this week that said heightened screening procedures and truck-sized explosives-detection machines in airport lobbies — added after 9/11 — had created crowds that put passengers at risk.

"In the '70s, gangs in Europe entered airports and machine-gunned and killed people," said Stephen Van Beek, policy director for Airports Council International-North America. "Terrorists know if they did that today, it would be highly publicized."

The risk is acute at LAX, considered the state's top terrorist target.

Lines will decrease about 50% at LAX by 2008, airport officials say, after installation of a new $400-million luggage system that will allow the screening machines to be moved out of the terminal lobbies. Los Angeles International is one of the few airports to receive federal funding for such a project.

LAX officials said that although they didn't plan to implement some of Rand's suggestions, dealing with the airport lines remained a top priority.

"We don't disagree with what Rand said at all," said Kim Day, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, which runs the city's airports. "While we are not implementing exactly what they recommended, thanks to Rand we are focused on a direction that will indeed make this airport more safe and secure."

Mayor James K. Hahn called for the Rand study last spring after the City Council threatened to hire a firm to conduct a security analysis of his $11-billion modernization plan for LAX.

Rand stands by its recommendation to reduce crowding outside the terminals and in the lobbies.

"Even if you use their numbers, it still comes out as the top recommendation," Stevens said.

The wide-ranging report — which considered the potential casualties from car bombs, mortars, snipers and surface-to-air missiles — was the first public review of the airport's vulnerabilities and the most cost-effective ways to fix them.

It found that passengers on sidewalks and in lobbies were at risk from car and luggage bombs. Rand urged the city to reduce crowds and to establish permanent checkpoints at LAX entrances to search vehicles for bombs.

The City Council asked airport officials to report how they planned to decrease lines and screen vehicles. In response, the airport agency quietly sent two letters to members of the council's Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this year.

Rand and some council members were unaware that the letters existed until informed by The Times earlier this week. In a five-page letter on airport crowds, LAX officials relied on statistics from an analysis by Leigh Fisher Associates, an airport queue specialist that conducted computer simulations of lines in each of the facility's nine terminals.

The study found that during peak periods, an increase of 25% to 75% in airline ticket agents would be required, depending on the terminal, to reduce lines to a wait of one minute — a level consultants considered optimal to reduce casualties in an attack. Average waits at ticket counters are now about 40 minutes during peak travel times.

Rand said that only 5% more airline employees were necessary to reduce lines to a target waiting time of five to seven minutes.

The Leigh Fisher study also concluded that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration would need 45% more baggage screeners and 25% more checkpoint screeners to reduce line waits to a minute. Wait times at screening checkpoints can stretch to an hour during busy periods.

Rand recommended adding lanes at security checkpoints, but did not specify how many more screeners would be needed.

Airport officials said the difference between their conclusion and Rand's occurred because the think tank didn't factor in the terminal layouts and frequency of passenger arrivals.

But Rand's Stevens suggested that, rather than conducting computer simulations, airport officials should add a few more people and run some tests to see how much they reduce lines. He also said a one-minute wait was an unrealistic goal.

Rand and the airport agency, which have spent months trying to negotiate an ongoing contract, say they hope to work on the problem together this spring.

The airport wants to reduce lines in the short term by working with the airlines to install more self-service kiosks that would let passengers obtain boarding passes themselves. A recent study showed that about 23% of passengers checking in at LAX last year used the kiosks.

Airport officials are also building more screening lanes and plan to continue a program to bus arriving passengers to less crowded terminals to check in.

As for Rand's call for permanent checkpoints at airport entrances to screen vehicles for bombs, airport agency chief Day said in a letter to council members that it would cost up to $8 million to build a such a checkpoint with 12 lanes and $39.5 million a year to operate it.

Such a facility would still not be big enough to efficiently screen cars unless screening times were kept below 10 seconds per vehicle, and it would gridlock streets around the airport, she wrote, causing passengers to miss flights.

Day concluded that "implementation of 100% vehicular screening cannot be accomplished in either the near term or for low cost."

Rand said that it did not ask the airport to screen every vehicle and that it believes devices such as vehicle scales can be used to reduce screening times. Airport officials say they have asked Rand to advise them about technology that could be used at checkpoints.

The airport agency is designing a permanent 12-lane vehicle checkpoint, but won't proceed with construction until the city decides whether it will build a controversial check-in center near the San Diego Freeway. That proposed facility is part of Hahn's LAX plan and requires further study and council approval.

Airport officials note that they have already spent $141 million since 9/11 to fortify LAX. Ongoing projects include a $57-million reinforcement of perimeter fencing and a $42-million effort to expand a camera surveillance system.

Rand researchers also noted that the airport was the only one of the country's 429 commercial facilities to approach it and ask for a public study of its security problems.

"Yeah, we may find LAX vulnerable," Rand's Stevens said. "But at least they're forward-leaning. They're doing things there — they're trying to fix that perimeter fence. You look at the perimeter fence around San Francisco and say, 'Sheesh.' "

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax19mar19,0,1791217.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Petronas]

Al-Qaida Web message offers missile tutorial
Updated: 8:33 p.m. ET March 30, 2005

An Internet posting obtained by NBC News — written mostly in Arabic — details how to fire a shoulder-fired missile and how to overcome security measures. NBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann says it was posted five days ago on an Internet location used by Iraq's top terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "We've seen plenty of material on radical Islamic Web sites dealing with shooting down military aircraft in combat zones," says Kohlmann. "However, this is the first time I've ever seen the deliberate targeting of civilian aircraft leaving U.S. airports."

NBC News will not reveal many of the details. There's a sketch of a terrorist on a rooftop shooting a missile at a plane, and information on possible evasive tactics. Much of the information appears to have been taken from the Web site of a U.S. magazine. There are also maps showing flight paths and new security perimeters from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. New York officials say they take this seriously and have alerted security at the airport. The FBI is still analyzing the information, but terrorism experts tell us there's no suggestion this poses any immediate threat.

"What concerns me is the acknowledgement by Zarqawi's people that we have vulnerability in our airports, of the launching of missiles against commercial airliners," says Charles Slepian, a risk analysis expert. Al-Qaida has tried to shoot down a plane. In 2002, terrorists fired missiles at an Israeli airliner in Kenya. And a launcher tube was found near a U.S. airbase in Saudi Arabia.

How tough would it be to pull off an attack in the United States? "The hardest thing for al-Qaida to do in order to carry out one of these attacks is to smuggle both the shooters and smuggle the weapons into place," says James Chow, an analyst with the Rand Corp. who has authored a study on shoulder-fired missiles.

The Internet posting ends with a provocative message: "This is what I have FOR now. I hope it is useful for my dear brothers."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7339768/

[al-Canine]

TSA Slated for Dismantling
http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?p=114860

[Petronas]

Passenger lists sought for flights over U.S.
Updated: 1:52 a.m. ET April 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government plans to force foreign airlines flying over American soil to turn over the names of passengers on board or check the names against U.S. government watch lists in an effort to prevent terrorists from entering U.S. airspace. Under current rules, overseas carriers are required to provide passenger manifests to U.S. officials within 15 minutes of takeoff if they are to land in the United States, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Officials have been concerned that terrorists may try to hijack a plane over the United States and crash it into a building, as occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. Officials acknowledge, however, that no credible intelligence exists indicating such a plot.

"We are currently considering a measure that would require foreign carriers to vet their passenger manifests against the 'no-fly' list and 'selectee' lists on overflights," said TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark. The no-fly list is a secret list of thousands of names of known or suspected terrorists who may pose a threat to U.S. aviation. The selectee list contains the names of individuals who are not known terrorists but present a possible threat to the airplane.

Airlines angered
The proposal has angered European, Mexican and Canadian airlines, which operate most of the 500 estimated daily overflights. If foreign airlines do not comply with the order, which is expected to be issued in coming weeks, they could have to reroute flights, adding time and cost to the journeys. At least one carrier, Aeromexico, claims the rule would violate international aviation agreements.

The TSA's proposal, discussed in recent days with foreign leaders, was prompted by a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Mexico on April 8 that was prohibited from flying over American airspace because two passengers were found to be on the U.S. government's no-fly list. The KLM flight, a specially configured 747 with 278 passengers and 15 horses on board, was five hours into its journey when Mexican authorities alerted U.S. officials about two Saudi passengers on board. TSA officials decided not to allow the plane to continue on its usual route over the United States.

The Canadian government offered the plane an option to land on its territory if the aircraft did not have enough fuel for a return trip, a Canadian official said. But KLM decided to turn the plane around for the five-hour flight back to Amsterdam out "of interest to the passengers and animals," KLM spokesman Hugo Baas said in an e-mail. "The assigned airport was not suitable for handling a 747 in this configuration." KLM is a leading air transporter of horses and operates an animal hospital at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

The two Saudi passengers on the KLM flight were men who trained at the same Arizona flight school as Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour, according a law enforcement source. The men, according to aviation sources, were questioned by Dutch officials and eventually allowed to fly back to Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials did not interview the men, according to law enforcement and Homeland Security sources.

A Homeland Security official familiar with the proposed rules said U.S. and foreign officials are negotiating over whether airlines or the U.S. government would check passenger names against the watch lists. If any names match those on the lists, airlines would have to undertake new security measures. For example, if a flight from Canada to Mexico were to have a passenger whose name matched one on the no-fly list, the flight would not be allowed into U.S. airspace. The passenger would have to be removed from the flight, or if the plane happened to already be in the air, it would have to fly around the United States to reach its destination, according to officials familiar with the plans. Similarly, if a passenger's name were to match one on the selectee list, the passenger would have to undergo more thorough security screening before boarding the plane, the source said.

Legal objection
Aeromexico, which has 18 weekly flights from Mexico City that cross U.S. airspace on their way to Europe, said that the U.S. proposal might violate international transit agreements and that it is consulting with the Mexican transportation department to "present our legal position for this potential requirement."

"This potential directive will restrict our privilege to fly across U.S. territory without landing, and to land for non-traffic purposes," said Fernando Ceballos, Aeromexico's assistant director for airport operations, in an e-mailed statement. If the TSA issues the requirement, he said, it would not be practical to fly around the U.S. coast. "Flying over water along the coast is not an option for Aeromexico as increased flight times would be prohibitive given the type of aircraft we use, our slots and crew requirements." TSA's spokesman Clark said, "We are working with our international partners to give thoughtful consideration to all aspects of the impact of this measure."

The rule change would affect many of Canada's estimated 1,000 weekly overflights, including domestic flights such as Montreal to Toronto, which fly over the United States because of geography and weather patterns. "We're currently gathering information from air carriers to evaluate the impact that the proposed amendment would have," said Vanessa Vermette, spokeswoman for Transport Canada.

KLM said that it is now checking its passenger lists against U.S. watch lists for its overflights, following the recent incident. "It is not up to an airline to judge the security measures of individual countries," KLM spokesman Baas said. "However, it is up to the responsible authorities of each country to safeguard that measures do not have negative counter effects on the daily operation of the airlines."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7577899/

[Petronas]

Annie Jacobsen Gets a Visit from the Feds
This is Part XIII of the ongoing series entitled "Terror in the Skies".
By Annie Jacobsen
4/22/2005

The call came a little over a month ago, on my cellular phone -- which is not listed. It went like this:

"Hello Annie, this is [name withheld, and name withheld, and name withheld and name withheld]. We're from the Department of Homeland Security."

"Yes."

"We'd like to set up a time to talk with you."

"Okay, now is good."

"Actually, we'd prefer to come to your house. How is March 15?"

"Not so great. That's three days before I'm due to have a baby…"

They came anyway. To my house in Los Angeles. By plane from Chicago.

Look Who's Coming for Coffee
The four federal agents showed up exactly on time, in a rented green mini-van, carrying briefcases and wearing suits (it was 75 degrees). They came to discuss the events of Northwest flight 327, the now notorious Detroit-to-Los Angeles plane trip I took last June. My husband led them to our house through the garden and, from where I sat in my kitchen, I could hear their comments: nice garden, pretty plants, too bad palm trees don't grow in Chicago. So, I thought, federal agents are people too.

In truth, I was excited that I hadn't gone into labor before the meeting. I was, after all, meeting with the big boys (actually three men and one woman). In the nine months that I've been working on this series, my access to the government has been through mid-level bureaucrats and agency mouthpieces. So here I was, suddenly meeting with agents who have real access to the truth -- and at their request.

On the telephone, the agents explained to me that the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, has been investigating flight 327 and flying DHS agents around the country to talk to various parties -- the flight attendants, pilots, federal air marshals and the passengers. They had saved me for last.

Here's what I find fascinating: while one arm of the government (the Federal Air Marshal Service) has vehemently maintained all along that "nothing happened on flight 327," the other, more muscular arm (the Department of Homeland Security) has been conducting a rather large investigation about it. Based on my 4 ½ hour meeting with the agents, I can tell you that not only have they been investigating what did happen during the flight, but they've also been investigating who botched the subsequent investigation as well as how it got botched.

So what do you say to four federal agents at your kitchen table on a bright Tuesday morning? The first thing I clarified for the agents was that, prior to my experience on flight 327, I had never heard of a "probe" or a "dry run." For the record, I explained, I had never heard of the James Woods incident either. with four men."]

Standing in my kitchen, one of the agents said, "What I can tell you is this: Mohammed Atta was one of the passengers on that flight with James Woods." (Apparently, this information has never been made public.) With that, the agent pulled out his chair, opened his notebook and started in with his questions for me (at which point the other three agents opened up their notepads almost simultaneously).

During my meeting with the agents, what was not said was often as revealing as what was said. Naturally, the agents "were not at liberty" to tell me anything about the 13 Syrian men aboard flight 327, but they asked a lot of questions regarding my "intuition" about the situation: Intuition told me something was not right. Intuition is why I began noting the men's actions from the get-go. And it was exactly these details in which the agents seemed most interested. One of the agents commented on the fact that I took a lot of hits in the press -- that I was called a racist and a bigot simply for sticking with my gut instinct. To me, the agents' story that Mohammed Atta had been on James Woods' flight was a wink and a nod to the fact that it's fine to trust your intuition. If you're wrong, you can always stand corrected.

The Devil Is in the Details
Each agent carried a thick document (30-40 pages) filled with questions. All four took copious notes. After about three hours, they excused themselves, saying they were going to pow-wow privately in the garden for a little while. When the agents returned, they continued with what seemed to be the same line of questioning.

They continued to ask my husband and me question after question but, in the course of the morning, here are some additional details I gathered -- things that I didn't otherwise know:

The Northwest Airlines flight attendants interviewed for the investigation would only speak to federal agents with lawyers from the airline present. (One agent remarked to me, "Northwest Airlines wishes flight 327 never happened.")
There were 27 airports between Detroit and Los Angeles where the pilot could have landed flight 327 yet didn't.
Because the men were from Syria -- which the State Department lists as a terrorist-sponsoring nation -- each man was interviewed individually by Customs and Border Patrol when he entered the country. Once in the United States, they traveled back and forth across the country several times using one-way tickets, for which they paid cash.
Two months prior to the flight, the FBI issueda warning that, based on credible information, terrorist organizations might try to hide their members behind P visas -- cultural or sports visas -- to gain entry into the United States.
The Syrians entered the United States on P-3 cultural visas, which they overstayed; the visas had expired by the time they boarded flight 327.
While being interviewed at Los Angeles Airport (LAX), none of the federal law enforcement agencies involved noticed that the men's visas were expired.
At LAX, the FBI interviewed only the two "leaders" of the group; 11 of the Syrians on flight 327 were never asked a single question by law enforcement.
The Syrians were allowed to leave even before the FBI interviewed me and my husband.
The Federal Air Marshal (FAM) supervisor at LAX took statements from my husband and me on the back of an envelope, later borrowing a notepad from another FAM.
Another passenger from flight 327 indicated to the agents that he did not see any musical instruments in the baggage claim area, including the oversized baggage area.

So What Really Happened on Flight 327?
The agents who sat with me all morning going over the events of flight 327 seemed sincerely committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on that flight. It seemed obvious that they believe something happened. Was it a probe? A dry run? A training exercise or an intelligence gathering mission? My sense is that the jury's still out on a hard and fast answer. But flight 327 was far from a situation involving 13 hapless Syrian musicians and a case of bad behavior.

Since 9/11 the Justice Department has been widely criticized for one particular tactic it uses in fighting the War on Terror: it detains suspicious persons for long periods of time and puts them under heavy questioning before they are ever even charged with a crime. Flight 327 seems to have had an extreme case of just the opposite. There were 13 men on a domestic flight acting in such a way that many passengers felt their lives might be in danger. And yet not one of the individuals responsible for that threatening behavior was detained. Only two were put under light questioning, let alone medium or heavy questioning. Two individuals from a terrorist-sponsoring nation were allowed to speak on behalf of the other 11 men. In this War on Terror, whatever happened to a middle ground? Can a democratic nation fight a War on Terror and at the same time bend over backward so as not to offend a few visitors' rights?

Perhaps these answers -- or at least some of them -- are forthcoming. According to the agents, once the investigation wraps up, the Office of the Inspector General will generate two reports on flight 327: one for DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff (Tom Ridge's replacement), which will be classified, and one for public consumption, which you and I will be able to read (this DHS report is different than the document Congress is working on). Whether the version we get will be a mere press-conference account or an actual glimpse into what went wrong during and after flight 327 is anyone's guess.

As they stood to leave, one of the agents shook my hand and said, "Thank you for writing those articles." The most senior agent asked if he could touch my very pregnant belly. Then he said, "As a fellow American I can say you did your duty." A third agent borrowed a line from my original article: "If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 13 terrorists learn to play instruments?"

Anyone who's read my Terror in the Skies Series knows that I have not been writing with an eye toward approval from any government agency. But I really appreciated the agents' tip of the hat.

[I]Annie Jacobsen writes about business, finance and terrorism for a variety of national and international magazines and webzines. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and two sons.

http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=846


Recall this also:

Jihad comes to Small Town, USA
Posted: April 19, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Laura Mansfield

... another student took the podium. His name was Khaled, and he began to recount his recent trip to New York City. Khaled and three of his companions had gone to New York for several days in January. He told of how uncomfortable his trip up to NYC had been. He felt like he was being watched, and thought he was the victim of racial profiling. Khaled and his friends were pretty unhappy about it, and while in New York, they came up with a plan to "teach a lesson" to the passengers and crew. You can imagine the story Khaled told. He described how he and his friends whispered to each other on the flight, made simultaneous visits to the restroom, and generally tried to "spook" the other passengers. He laughed when he described how several women were in tears, and one man sitting near him was praying. The others in the room thought the story was quite amusing, judging from the laughter. The imam stood up and told the group that this was a kind of peaceful civil disobedience that should be encouraged, and commended Khaled and his friends for their efforts. ...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/a...RTICLE_ID=43868
http://wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93

[Petronas]

I highly recommend that anyone interested in aviation security also read the first twelve parts of Annie Jacobsen’s “Terror in the Skies, Again?” series. You will find it a real eye opener if you haven'’ read it yet. The links to those twelve articles follow (the articles are too long to post here in their entirety).

Terror in the Skies, Again?
Part I
7/13/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=578

Part II: Terror in the Skies, Again?
Part II
7/19/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=581

Part III: Terror in the Skies, Again?
Part III
7/30/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=593

Part IV: Terror in the Skies, Again?
Part IV
8/4/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=595

Another Passenger from Flight 327 Steps Forward With Disturbing New Details
Part V
8/20/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=600

Russian Airliners Were Likely Exploded From Their Toilets
Part VI
8/30/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=615

Gentlemen, Why Can’t We Get it Right?
Part VII
9/15/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=629

Tired of Hearing About the Federal Air Marshals? Congress Isn’t
Part VIII
10/1/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=642

What Happened on United Airlines Flight 925?
Part IX
10/18/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=713

Who Is Steering the “No-Fly” List?
Part X
11/16/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=712

How Intelligent Are We?
Part XI
12/20/2004
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=725

Bizarre Incident on British Airways 0215
Part XII
4/15/2005
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=836

[al-Canine]

TSA to test new security technology
http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?p=152925

[Petronas]

DEBKAfile
Last Updated on May 13, 2005, 12:51 AM (GMT+02:00)

Air France Paris-Boston flight diverted to Bangor, Maine after passenger’s name appeared on US no-fly list of suspected terrorists. Jet carries 167 passengers.

http://www.debka.com/

[Petronas]

Holiday jet passenger tells of terror alert
11 May 2005

A DUNDEE University graduate told last night how he and his family found themselves at the centre of a terror alert when a passenger on board their holiday flight started shouting slogans linked with Muslim extremism, forcing the flight to be aborted and evacuation of their plane. James Dargie (32), a 1995 geography graduate now working as a marine data manager with the Countryside Council for Wales, told how passengers “screamed with terror” when a man of Muslim origin started shouting “Allah Achbar” or “God is Great” as their plane taxied for take-off at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus yesterday afternoon.

Mr Dargie, who had boarded London-bound BA flight 663 with his wife Mona and young son Tomos just minutes earlier, told how a “wave of panic” spread among passengers as the chanting began. As airline staff tried to ascertain what was happening, the captain announced that the flight was being aborted before it had even begun and all passengers and crew would have to leave the aircraft.

As security personnel boarded the plane, the disruptive passenger was quickly taken into custody and all other passengers were required to disembark. All passengers had to reclaim their luggage while further checks of the aircraft were made.

Speaking to The Courier in a rushed call from Larnaca Airport via his mobile phone, Mr Dargie said, “We were just starting to taxi when this Bangladeshi-looking man starts shouting in Urdu or Arabic and then going ‘Allah Achbar! Allah Achbar!’ I’m not sure if he was with his wife or mother, but he looked like he might have been blind or even suffering a panic attack. Whatever, it was very frightening—and with September 11 still fresh in people’s minds, folk were keen to get off that plane. We’re now in the airport and don’t know what’ll be happening next, but we’ve had to reclaim our bags and await further instructions.”

Last night a spokesman for British Airways confirmed there had in fact been three disruptive passengers on board the aircraft and the captain had decided to “offload them.” The spokesman had no further information as to the nature of the disturbance but said the captain would lodge a full report when he returned to London.

Stressing that safety was paramount, the spokesman said, “As they were on the aircraft it’s a standard security procedure to evict the passengers and carry out a full search of the cabin prior to departing for the destination. I do not know at this stage what the disruption was.” The spokesman said the flight had been due to take off at 4.50 pm local time and, following a search, had been rescheduled to take-off around two hours late. Flight BA 663 is a daily British Airways service from Larnaca to London. The Boeing 767 aircraft, used for long-short-haul flights, was carrying 199 passengers. Larnaca Airport is the largest airport in Cyprus and handles over 800 flights per month and over 2.5 million passengers per year. The airport has been undergoing expansion to the terminal and further plans will make the airport capable of handling 7.5 million passengers per year.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2005/05/11/newsstory7117450t0.asp

[Petronas]

Service Before Security
June 17, 2005

The good news is U.S. airport traffic is returning to pre-9/11 levels. The bad news is, so are security priorities at international terminals, where some of the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. illegally. New internal memos I've obtained show the Homeland Security Department seems more worried about getting foreign travelers to their destinations on time than screening them for terror ties.

In fact, I've learned the department has formed a so-called Airport Wait Time working group, which met for the first time in December to come up with a national strategy to clock federal inspectors processing foreign travelers entering the U.S. at major international airports. Those who take too long are written up.

Airport immigration inspectors are our first line of defense against terrorists entering the country. They check fingerprints and photographs against terror watchlists and question suspicious foreign passengers. Yet they are under new pressure to clear planes in response to complaints from airlines about security related delays.

"Flight times are now much more important than catching terrorists, drugs or illegals," a Customs and Border Protection supervisor at a major international airport told me. "We are always pressured to clear passengers in under 60 minutes, no matter what -- even though Congress lifted that mandate after 9/11." Indeed, Congress and the president supposedly did away with such passenger-processing deadlines under the USA Patriot Act to make sure antiterrorist screening is not rushed and no terrorists slip through the cracks. The 60-minute clock starts ticking as soon as planes block at the gate, before international passengers even deplane, and keeps ticking as they walk from the plane to the inspections lines. To meet the new deadline, inspectors working large flights say they must rush through US-VISIT screening procedures, which were recently expanded to include Visa Waiver Program passengers from countries like Britain.

Making matters worse, they are plagued by chronic computer problems. Sometimes the national security system goes on the blink for hours at a time, and outages have been occurring almost on a daily basis, they say. Under such circumstances, some foreign passengers are admitted unscreened. No matter, headquarters has other priorities -- namely, keeping foreign travelers happy. In fact, a separate DHS memo distributed last year admonishes federal inspectors to "smile" more as part of a new campaign to make what it calls their foreign "customers" feel welcome.

In the new DHS memo, dated May 2, 2005, and titled “Airport Wait Times Reporting Requirement-Update,” CBP field directors are ordered to collect and report wait-time data to headquarters for review "on a daily basis." "Managers report primary and secondary wait times for all of their commercial flights on a daily basis using a template developed by" the Office of Field Operations, says the two-page memo signed by CBP Executive Operations Director Patricia M. Duffy. "The template is designed to capture the average primary wait time and record information on all flights exceeding 60 minutes."

Some officials complain the collection of data also distracts from what should be their main mission of screening out terrorists. "Look at all the effort that goes into this!" one CBP official exclaimed. "What about catching bad guys?" Even the memo from headquarters acknowledges that "this process is extremely labor intensive."

Several airports have been mercifully exempted from the daily reporting requirement, since they "do not appear to have significant problems with their wait times," the memo says. They include major airports in Boston, Philadelphia, Orlando, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Detroit, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Seattle.

The memo notes that 12 of the 21 busiest airports account for 96 percent of the number of flights with wait times exceeding 60 minutes. To reduce flight delays at these airports, [I]DHS exempts a number of passengers from US-VISIT security screening if necessary, including teens, elderly, families, foreign pilots and religious workers such as imams, according to memo dated Jan. 2, 2004, and marked "LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE."

Foreign air crews are exempt even though a number of Saudi and other foreign Muslim airline pilots have been linked to terrorism. So are Muslim clerics staying in the U.S. on R-1 and R-2 visas. Such foreign religious workers have been ranked the "lowest threat" among the 10 visa classifications (I've redacted the specific rankings, from highest threat to lowest, for obvious reasons). Yet hundreds of Muslim clerics have been linked to terrorism, many of whom still preach in the U.S. Just last week, federal authorities arrested two Pakistani imams in connection with a terror case involving a possible al-Qaeda cell in the sleepy farming community of Lodi, Calif. The men allegedly violated the terms of their religious worker visas.

The leniency DHS gives such visiting clerics alarms GOP U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, since many are "calling for the violent overthrow of the nation" from mosque pulpits. "They enter into this country, they are assigned to mosques. And most of the mosques in the United States are being built with Saudi money, most of them are Wahhabi. And these people, many of them, preach essentially sedition," Tancredo asserted in a recent hearing on border security held by the House International Relations Committee. "What these imams have said even outside the mosque would under any other situation, if anybody else would say these things, be considered to be seditious, and even charges would be brought on that basis."

He says putting them at the top of the list for exemption from fingerprinting and terror monitoring is the height of naiveté, and he's right. Many Muslim clerics use their religiosity simply as cover to carry out terror-related activities, such as recently convicted imam Ali al-Timimi, who encouraged young Virginia Muslims to kill Americans abroad. To be fair, the government in monitoring immigration at airports in a post-9/11 world is hard-pressed to strike the right balance between security and commerce. But right now it appears to be appeasing the travel industry at the expense of national security, and may only be inviting another 9/11.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18459

[Petronas]

United States (Country threat level - 3): On 23 June 2005, officials in Westchester County, Connecticut, disclosed that an intoxicated 20-year-old stole an aircraft and flew it at a low altitude before landing and being taken into custody by police officers. Reports indicate that the man stole the aircraft from Danbury Municipal Airport in Connecticut at approximately 0130 local time (0530 UTC) on 22 June and flew it for three hours before landing at the same airport. Upon his arrest, the man's blood-alcohol level was tested at 0.15, almost twice the legal limit for driving an automobile. According to a Westchester County official, the incident showed the need for tighter security at smaller airports such as Danbury. While the airport states that all aircraft are fitted with wheel locks, an investigation into how the man was able to gain possession of the aircraft is underway.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 6/23/2005

[Petronas]

Canada (Country threat level - 2): An unidentified man bypassed pre-boarding security at Vancouver International Airport (CYVR/YVR) on 26 June 2005, and was not discovered until after he arrived at Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport (CYYZ/YYZ). Thousands of passengers, including those who had already boarded aircraft, were brought through security screening a second time while security forces searched the airport for the man. Flights were delayed during the virtual shutdown of the airport, which lasted approximately one hour. Upon discovery in Toronto, police officials questioned the man but released him without charge. It is not known how security officials detected the man.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 6/27/2005

[Petronas]

Probably not terrorism related, but it shows how easy it is to hijack an airplane in those countries.

Brazil (Country threat level - 3): At approximately 0810 local time on 28 June 2005, two armed men subdued the pilot and co-pilot of a Seneca 3 aircraft -- registration number PT VNO -- operated by Oliveira Taxi Aereo, while it was refueling at Barra do Garзas Airport (SBBW), located in the state of Mato Grosso. Two airport employees were forced to lie down on the floor while the criminals took the pilot hostage and ordered him to take off. The aircraft crossed the border into neighboring Bolivia at approximately 1050 local time. As of 29 June, the pilot remains hostage. The Federal Police (PF) force, which is responsible for the security of civil aviation lacks the resources to intercept aircraft in instances.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 6/29/2005

[Petronas]

Given the known presence of Jihadi groups in the Tri-Border area, one has to wonder about the possibility of Brazil being used as the base to plan and/or execute an attack.

Brazil (Country threat level - 3): According to local reports emerging on 14 September 2005, two special operations are underway at Guarulhos International Airport (SBGR/GRU) in Sao Paulo. The operations, which Federal Police officers are carrying out, are aimed at dismantling criminal organizations operating inside the airport. These organizations operate both at the cargo and passenger terminals and are involved in facilitating the smuggling of items as well as in falsifying visas and passports. Arrest warrants have been issued for police officers and customs agents working at this facility. Similar operations are underway in the states of Minas Gerais, Parana and Espirito Santo.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 9/14/2005

[Petronas]

Further installments of the excellent "Terror in the Skies" series.

Will the Ambassador of Syria Stay Silent?
Part XIV
6/6/2005
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=885

"...I've located a photograph of Nour Mehana and his Syrian back-up band ... But here's the problem: The band members in the photograph are not the same group of men from flight 327 who identified themselves as such to Federal agents. ..."

Ice Picks and Scissors and Arrows, Oh My!
Part XV
9/16/2005
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=957

"... A TSA Screener at McCarren Airport called to report that at 2215 on 7/11/05, subject (name withheld) was stopped ... with a concealed sheetrock cutting knife concealed inside his shoe. (Name withheld) was born in Iraq. He claimed not to know the knife was there. ... (Name withheld) was allowed to continue his travel.

Would you want to be on a flight with a man who had tried to board with a concealed sheetrock knife? The fact that a four-inch serrated blade was hidden inside the man's shoe speaks for itself. ..."

A Diversionary Tale about a Diverted Plane
Part XVI
10/7/2005
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=991

"... American Airlines was considering not letting [Richard] Reid fly, "but French authorities insisted [the airline] take Reid as a passenger."

Praying While Flying
Part XVII
10/21/2005
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=1003

"... On September 11, 2005, Excel Airways flight #2143 from Cyprus to England was grounded because two men, dressed as religious Muslims in white baggy clothing, skull caps and beards -- British passport holders reported to be of Pakistani descent -- were acting suspiciously: ... the men "ran" into separate toilets -- one at the front and one in back -- and wouldn't come out. ... When the men finally emerged, one was overheard telling a flight attendant that he'd been praying.

"Is it physically possible to pray in an aircraft bathroom?" I asked. "It is not," [Ibrahim] Hopper [CAIR Director of Media Relations] said, "because Muslims are prohibited from praying in cemeteries and bathrooms."

[Petronas]

Operation Bojinka
By Annie Jacobsen
8/19/2005

That terrorists want to build bombs in aircraft bathrooms is not news. The tactic dates from at least 1994, when Ramzi Yousef, along with his uncle, Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), set out to blow up eleven or twelve U.S. passenger jets over the Pacific Ocean, simultaneously, by building bombs in the aircrafts' bathrooms. The terrorists involved in the plot were not to be suicide bombers. Instead, they would each build a bomb on one leg of the eleven or twelve flights, set the bomb's timer for later, and then deplane. If the plan seems overly ambitious, its two masterminds were certainly capable of pulling it off. Ramzi Yousef was the terrorist who tried to bring down the World Trade Center (WTC-1) in 1993 with a truck bomb. Yousef's co-conspirator, KSM, would go on to mastermind the 9/11 attack.

The plot was called Operation Bojinka (bojinka being slang in many Arabic dialects for explosion), and it was Yousef's next big operation after WTC-1. Yousef had been a kind of one-man terrorist show, barely funded and not very well organized. After his success with WTC-1, that changed. Yousef became respected as an international terrorist. The U.S. government wanted him so badly that they put a $2 million bounty on his head and air-dropped 32,000 matchbooks with Yousef's photo on them in rural Pakistan, hoping to find him. Yousef was able to evade authorities as he traveled extensively throughout South East Asia. He was now funded by his wealthy uncle, KSM, as well as his uncle's wealthy business partner, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, -- Osama Bin Laden's brother in law.

For Operation Bojinka, Yousef set about perfecting a tiny explosive device that could be smuggled onto an aircraft in separate parts -- parts disguised as seemingly innocent items. Yousef first tested one of these bombs, on December 1, 1994, in the Greenbelt Theatre in Manila. By placing one of his miniature bombs under a theatre seat, Yousef simulated the physical conditions he'd later face on a plane. The bomb successfully exploded a few hours later. Fortunately the seat was empty. No one was killed but a few, local theatergoers were hurt.

Yousef worked for another ten days to perfect his tiny bomb. On December 11, he carried out another test for the Bojinka plot, only this time he did it on an actual plane. Posing as an Italian member of parliament -- he traveled with a fraudulent Italian passport identifying himself as one 'Armaldo Forlani' -- Yousef bought a one-way ticket, from Manila to Cebu, on Philippines Air flight 434. Yousef carried the components of his bomb on him, including nitroglycerin hidden in a bottle of contact lens solution and bomb stabilizers disguised as cotton balls. In the hollowed-out heels of his shoes, Yousef hid batteries.

During the flight, Yousef asked the flight attendant if he could change seats, telling the flight attendant he needed a better view. In truth, he wanted to occupy a seat over the plane's fuselage near the exit door. Half-way through the flight, Yousef assembled the bomb in the aircraft's bathroom. He returned to his seat and placed the bomb inside the life vest underneath. He set the timer for several hours later and deplaned.

On the next leg of the flight, the bomb exploded. The twenty-three-year-old Japanese businessman, Haruki Ikegami, who was sitting where Yousef had sat died a miserable death, his legs separated from the rest of his body. Fortunately for the 273 other passengers and twenty flight crew on board the 747, the captain was able to make a heroic, emergency landing on nearby Okinawa Island. The bomb was too small to destroy the plane in mid-air and Yousef set about fine-tuning his calculations.

A few weeks later, shortly before Operation Bojinka was set to unveil, Ramzi Yousef was building a bomb in his Manila apartment when one of the bombs exploded. A fire started and Yousef fled. Manila police discovered a cache of information about the terrorist on his computer, which interrupted Bojinka. Had the plot succeeded, it's likely that four thousand civilians would have been killed. Some of the details are extraordinary: Yousef needed his bombs to explode in seats above the planes' central fuel tanks, adjacent to the wings. When the bombs went off, they would ignite the plane's fuel, causing a massive, secondary explosion. Investigators would also learn that Yousef wanted the bombs to explode over heavily populated areas of the United States.

In the Observer article, from February 2004, Burke reported that terrorists were again working on the nightmare scenario of building bombs in aircraft bathrooms. Burke detailed a 2002 incident involving a Moroccan jet landing in Metz, France, one that had 100 grams of pentrite (the explosive used by shoe-bomber Richard Reid) hidden in an armrest, and explained that French officials believe the explosives were placed on the jet in a "trial run." At the time of the article, the incidents had only ever amounted to dry runs. In August 2004 that changed. The Bojinka scenario became real.

On the night of August 24, 2004, two civilian aircraft in Russia exploded, almost simultaneously, killing all 90 passengers and crew. The mid-air explosions were the deadly result of terrorists' bombs. The event was widely reported and has since been confirmed by the U.S. Department of State.

Not as widely reported was that Russian investigators believe the detonations occurred in the two planes' toilets.

http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=1003&p=2

[Petronas]

'SMOKING DRAGON' UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION RESULTS IN NEW INDICTMENT ALLEGING SCHEME TO SMUGGLE SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES INTO UNITED STATES
November 9, 2005

Los Angeles, CA - Using an anti-terrorism statute for the first time in the nation, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles today returned a superseding indictment that accuses two men of conspiring with foreign nationals to smuggle into the United States shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down aircraft. The new indictment charges Chao Tung Wu, 51, of La Puente, California, and Yi Qing Chen, 41, of Rosemead, California, with conspiracy to import missile systems designed to destroy aircraft. This statute, which was enacted in December 2004 as part of an intelligence reform package, carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 25 years and the possibility of life without parole in federal prison.

The superseding indictment is the result of Operation Smoking Dragon, an FBI-led undercover investigation into smuggling operations in Southern California. Smoking Dragon and a related investigation in New Jersey this summer led to the indictment of 87 individuals – including Wu and Chen – on charges related to international conspiracies to smuggle counterfeit United States currency, drugs and other contraband into the United States. In August, Wu, Chen and two others were indicted for allegedly conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and Ecstasy, as well as on charges of importing millions of counterfeit cigarettes. Wu was also charged in a scheme to import "Supernotes" – extremely high quality counterfeit $100 bills – into the United States. Today's indictment adds the charge related to the surface-to-air missiles against Wu and Chen.

The indictment charges that Wu and Chen met with an undercover FBI agent and agreed to arrange the importation of several QW-2 shoulder-fired missiles, as well as the missiles' launch and operation hardware, from another country. Wu and Chen told the undercover agent that a third country would pretend to order the missiles from the manufacturer, but the missiles would, instead, be shipped to the United States in sea-land containers. As part of the scheme, the missiles allegedly would have been fraudulently manifested as "civilian" equipment, such as machine components. Wu, Chen and unindicted co-conspirators allegedly were to pay bribes to customs officials in other countries to ensure the shipment. One payment was to be a $2 million bribe to an official in a foreign country.

Wu and Chen allegedly traveled overseas on several occasions in furtherance of the conspiracy and gave the undercover agent documents regarding the weapons. The agent received a brochure which described in detail the capabilities of the QW-2 missiles, describing the missiles' targets to include the F-15 and F-16 Fighters, the A-10 Attack aircraft, the AH-64 "Apache", and the Tomahawk cruise missile. During the alleged conspiracy, Wu and Chen also referred the undercover agent to a foreign "General" with whom the undercover agent had contact regarding the purchase of weapons. The indictment further alleges that Wu sold the undercover agent a bogus passport to assist him in negotiating overseas the purchase of the weapons.

After Wu and Chen were arrested in August during the takedown of Smoking Dragon, the undercover agent had additional contacts with a foreign individual who said he wanted to complete the weapons deal even without Wu or Chen. Wu and Chen were previously ordered held without bond. They are scheduled to be arraigned on the superseding indictment on Monday. An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

Operation Smoking Dragon, which was announced on August 18, resulted in four indictments in Los Angeles that name 30 defendants. The indictments allege that several individuals in California were importing counterfeit products, including $40 million worth of cigarettes that were manufactured in a foreign country, through the Los Angeles and Long Beach waterfronts. An FBI undercover operation arranged the shipment of these counterfeit goods into California for the purpose of identifying the entire criminal enterprise. FBI undercover agents posed as underworld criminals who could move these counterfeit products into the United States and Canada. The defendants, believing they were dealing with other criminals, paid for some of the illegal shipments with counterfeit cigarettes and narcotics. Operation Smoking Dragon led to the seizure of nearly $1.2 million in Supernotes.

"Operation Smoking Dragon uncovered an extremely sophisticated smuggling operation that included the production of counterfeit goods and their distribution across the country," said United States Attorney Debra Wong Yang. "Today's indictment shows a willingness of the smugglers to acquire practically anything for importation – no matter how dangerous or destructive." Operation Smoking Dragon was an investigation run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which received substantial assistance from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the United States Secret Service.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pr2005/151.html

[Petronas]

Good idea, let us make flying even less safe than it already is.

Giving airline data to US illegal: EU court adviser
Nov 22, 2005

BRUSSELS - The European Union's transfer of airline passenger data to the United States -- part of U.S. efforts to fight terrorism -- should be declared illegal, an adviser to the European Union's highest court said on Tuesday. Since May, 2004, the EU has shared with U.S. authorities 34 categories of information on airline passengers flying to U.S. destinations, including name, address, all forms of payment information and contact phone numbers. The agreement sprang from one of the anti-terrorism laws passed by U.S. Congress in response to September 11, 2001, attacks using hijacked aircraft.

A court statement said: "Neither the (European Union) Council decision approving the agreement nor the (European) Commission decision holding that information be sufficiently protected by the United States have an adequate legal basis." If the European Court of Justice accepts the advice of its adviser the data-sharing system will be made illegal. The Luxembourg-based court will likely rule next year. It follows the lead of its advisers in most cases.

The data case began last year when the European Parliament sued the other two branches of the European Union, arguing they lacked authority to conclude the data-sharing agreement. David Henderson, a spokesman for the Association of European Airlines that includes about 30 major airlines, said the announcement "generates a great deal of uncertainty ... It is unclear what will happen." Dutch European Parliament member Sophie in 't Veld said the opinion of Advocate General Philippe Leger was "so clear it will be difficult to ignore." Governments "take all kinds of tough measures which are not well thought out and have insufficient democratic legitimacy," she said.

Spokesmen for the European Commission and the British presidency of the EU refused to be drawn into a discussion. "This is a preliminary step," said Commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger. "When the court has spoken we will speak." A spokesman for the British presidency said: "We don't agree with the opinion but will await the (high court) decision."

The European Union's executive, the European Commission, decided in May last year that the United States Bureau of Customs and Border Protection would adequately protect private information, the court noted. A few days later, the European Union's Council, comprising EU member states, approved the deal with the United States for the transfer of data. But Leger said on Tuesday the European Commission wrongly used a law which covers only civil matters to deal with public security and criminal issues.

The Council acted under its authority for establishing an internal market. Leger said that "does not constitute an appropriate legal basis." The European Parliament, made up of lawmakers elected from across the 25 member states of the European Union, also argued that it should have had an opportunity to accept or reject any deal before it was adopted. Leger rejected that argument.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1336599

[Petronas]

Algerian guilty of downloading bomb data
Friday November 25, 2005

A 27-year-old Algerian asylum seeker was yesterday found guilty of downloading information on bomb making from the internet in the first trial of an al-Qaida suspect in Northern Ireland's no-jury Diplock courts. Abbas Boutrab had gathered instructions on how to construct explosives and smuggle them on an aircraft. ...

During the seven-week hearing in Belfast an FBI agent, Donald Schtleben, demonstrated that 25 computer disks found in Boutrab's possession could be used to build a bomb capable of bringing down an aircraft. He suggested the devices could have been disguised inside canisters of baby talcum powder. The disks showed how the device could be assembled in an aircraft toilet by a suicide bomber "using average mechanical skills and manual dexterity", he said. The instructions suggested the bomber should work alone, citing the case of the British shoe bomber Richard Reid. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1650514,00.html

Entire article posted under "Ireland".

[Petronas]

Unruly passenger prompts flight to divert to Charlotte
Nov 26, 2005

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A United Airlines flight was diverted to Charlotte after a passenger lit a cigarette, argued with a flight attendant, then urinated in the plane's aisle, the airline said. Flight 1502 had 117 passengers aboard when it was diverted from its direct route from Orlando, Fla., to Washington, D.C. Friday night, United Airlines spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said. The plane landed in Charlotte at 8:15 p.m. and was on the ground for about 20 minutes before completing the flight to Dulles International Airport, the airline's Web site said.

The man was taken into custody by federal authorities, Charlotte/Douglas International Airport director Jerry Orr said. Charlotte-Mecklenburg aiport police and the FBI did not return calls seeking comment.

Flight attendants noticed that the man appeared drunk not long after the plane left Orlando, Urbanski said. He later lit a cigarette and began to argue with a flight attendant who asked him to put it out, she said. He obeyed, but when the flight attendant walked away, he stood up and urinated, Urbanski said.

http://dwb.newsobserver.com/news/ncwire_news/story/2845667p-9299082c.html

[Petronas]

Threat forces evacuation of plane at Newark gate
12/2/2005 5:38 PM

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A bomb threat scrawled in the bathroom of an airplane at a gate at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday is believed to be an imitation of a similar threat that forced a jet to make an emergency landing in Kansas City a day earlier, authorities said. Continental Airlines flight 2499, which had been scheduled to depart for Pittsburgh at around 12:20 p.m., was towed to a remote section of the airport, where it was searched for explosives before being cleared at 1:50 p.m., said Tony Ciavolella, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport.

Twenty passengers who were on the aircraft at Terminal C were removed and questioned by investigators while the search was being carried out. They were taken back to the terminal by bus, and were placed on a different plane, which took off at 3:15 p.m. to make the flight to Pittsburgh. Port Authority police were notified at about 12:30 p.m. when someone saw a handwritten bomb threat scrawled in a restroom aboard the jet, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Airport police responded immediately, along with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The threat came a day after an America West Airbus jet made an emergency landing at Kansas City International Airport when someone left a note in the plane's bathroom that said: "Taliban is Here." Friday's incident in Newark appeared to be the work of a copycat, the source said. The America West plane was flying from Phoenix to Boston on Thursday when a passenger saw the note. The passenger notified the flight crew and the pilot landed the plane at about 1:30 p.m., authorities said. After a search by the FBI, airport police and the Transportation Security Administration, passengers were allowed to board the America West plane again three hours later.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-12-02-bomb-threats_x.htm

[Petronas]

Air Marshal Kills Passenger, Citing Threat
December 07, 2005 6:29 PM EST

MIAMI - An agitated passenger who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal Wednesday after he bolted frantically from a jetliner that was about to take off, officials said. No bomb was found. The man, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, was gunned down on a jetway just before the American Airlines plane was about to leave for Orlando, near his home in Maitland. It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said.

According to a witness, the man frantically ran down the aisle of the Boeing 757, flailing his arms, while his wife tried to explain that he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication. The passenger indicated there was a bomb in his bag and was confronted by air marshals but ran off the aircraft, Doyle said. The marshals went after him and ordered him to get down on the ground, but he did not comply and was shot when he apparently reached into the bag, Doyle said.

The plane, Flight 924, had arrived in Miami from Medellin, Colombia, just after noon, and the shooting occurred shortly after 2 p.m. as the plane was about to take off for Orlando with the man and 119 other passengers and crew, American spokesman Tim Wagner said. Alpizar had arrived in Miami earlier in the day from Ecuador, authorities said.

After the shooting, investigators spread passengers' bags on the tarmac and let dogs sniff them for explosives, and bomb squad members blew up at least two bags. No bomb was found, said James E. Bauer, agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshals field office in Miami. He said there was no reason to believe there was any connection to terrorists. The concourse where the shooting took place was shut down for a half-hour, but the rest of the airport continued operating, officials said.

Mary Gardner, a passenger aboard the Orlando-bound flight, told WTVJ-TV in Miami that the man ran down the aisle from the rear of the plane. "He was frantic, his arms flailing in the air," she said. She said a woman followed, shouting, "My husband! My husband!" Gardner said she heard the woman say her husband was bipolar - a mental illness also known as manic-depression - and had not had his medication. Gardner said four to five shots were fired. She could not see the shooting. After the shooting, police boarded the plane and told the passengers to put their hands on their heads, Gardner said. "It was quite scary," she told the TV station via a cell phone. "They wouldn't let you move. They wouldn't let you get anything out of your bag."

There were only 33 air marshals at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Bush administration hired thousands more afterward, but the exact number is classified.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20051207/43966c50_3ca6_155262005120794071435

[Petronas]

EXCLUSIVE: Shoe Bomber Alert Preceded Airport Shooting
Dec. 8, 2005

FBI officials report that they have located the Egyptian man whose documents showed discrepancies after he was held at JFK airport last week. The man was in Iowa and is not considered a threat. Federal law enforcement sources told ABC News they had been on the alert for a possible shoe bomber when a federal air marshal opened fire at the Miami International Airport yesterday. Yesterday, an agitated passenger claiming to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal, officials said. No bomb was found.

Officials said a 50-year-old Egyptian man was stopped a week ago at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. Sources said he had a suspicious pair of shoes that tested positive five times for the explosive substance TATP on the interior of his shoes between the heel and sole. Federal officials said the man's shoes were remarkably similar to those used by shoe bomber Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up an American Airlines jet over the Atlantic four years ago. The Egyptian man's destination was Des Moines, Iowa, sources said, and he claimed he was a student at Iowa State University in Ames.

After holding him overnight, airport security in New York released him. The FBI was notified after he was released and put out a nationwide alert. FBI officials confirmed that the man's story was true and that he was not a threat.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1383832&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

[Petronas]

What really happened to AA Flight 612
Posted: December 9, 2005

The rumor mill started humming Monday morning, Nov. 28, after ABC Radio aired the following report:

FBI and Homeland Security agents spent part of the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at a plane leaving Los Angeles international airport. ABC's Alex Stone has the details.

... the pilots radioed air-traffic controllers saying what appeared to be a rocket had been fired at the aircraft and missed as American Airlines Flight 621 was climbing over the water. It had just taken off from LAX. The plane was enroute to Chicago ... When it landed, FBI agents spoke with the pilots. Sources say those agents now believe it was a flare or a bottle rocket that passed by and they don't think it was any threat to the aircraft.

This report did not run for long, possibly no more than once or twice. Still, thousands of people heard it, and many of those were understandably suspicious when no other major media outlet picked up the story.

Not satisfied with rumors, retired United Airline pilot, Ray Lahr, and aviation audio expert, Glen Schulze, decided to investigate. The pair have been cooperating in Lahr's ongoing Freedom Of Information Act suit in federal court against the CIA and the National Transportation Safety Board regarding the demise of TWA Flight 800. What they have found about the LAX flight is inconclusive, but intriguing, and deserves serious inquiry.

For starters, the flight was AA 612 and not AA 621 as reported. Lahr and Schulze checked its progress using the LAX airport monitor. Those interested in doing the same can enter Nov. 26, 12:49, 20-mile range, and then click on "start."

You will see every airplane aloft in the Los Angeles area on the map. In about a half minute, "AAL612" appears as a green aircraft crossing the shoreline. If you click on the aircraft, it will turn red, and the flight data will appear in a box to the right. Over the next few minutes, the aircraft turns south. At approximately 6,000 feet and off the coast of Redondo Beach, a new target will appear.

"The unidentified target's altitude does some funny things," observes Glenn Schulze, "from a constant 1,500 feet to suddenly showing 7,500 feet where it remains, which is the same altitude as AA FL 612 at this point in AA FL 612's climb-out."

According to Lahr, AA 612 seems "to split and become TWO! It remains TWO for a while, both targets moving together, then they separate, the mirror target fades, and AA 612 (thank God) is alone again, heading slightly south east."

The unidentified target appears for 12 to 13 sweeps of the FAA LAX TRACON radar rotating at a 4.7-second sweep rate. "This target can not be easily explained away as a radar ghost or artifact or swamp gas," adds Schulze, "as it exists and tracks over the ground for almost 50 seconds as it travels along with AA FL 612. Dynamite evidence!"

What makes the evidence particularly compelling is that the pilots apparently saw what the radar was reporting. Those who are interested in the pilot's commentary can go to the following site. The relevant conversation is at the very end of this segment, during the last minute. This conversation takes place several minutes after the incident and alludes to an earlier conversation.

ATC: Flare or a rocket?

AA 612: It looked more like a rocket.

ATC: American 612, how far away was it from your position?

AA 612: It was about half way between us and the coastline when we first called that last center guy.

Whatever the pilot saw prompted enough concern for LAX officials to contact the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. It also prompted a very serious report on ABC radio. The most comprehensive reporting on the subject appeared Dec. 3 in an LAX area newspaper called The South Bay Daily Breeze. The headline says it all: "Smoke Trail Wasn't Threat to Plane, Say Investigators." The article describes what the pilot saw as an "an unusual vapor trail," one that was "at least a mile below the airplane." FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller assured the readers that this presumed trail "absolutely posed no threat." This claim would be more reassuring had the FBI not also convinced the reporter that "whatever left the vapor trail did not appear on radar, and the pilot never reported seeing any kind of projectile."

The existing evidence would seem to refute all of those claims. The pilots saw not a vapor trail, but a "flare or a rocket." They saw it when the plane was no higher than 6,000 feet. Anything "at least a mile below them" would likely be swimming. The radar did pick something up, and the pilots considered the event sufficiently alarming to report it.

A veteran Airline Pilots Association safety investigator, Lahr was once much more likely to accept aviation authorities at their word. Having spent the last several years fighting them for information in the federal courts, he has grown increasingly skeptical. The FBI may have its reason for quieting fears, Lahr understands, but as the distorted investigation of TWA Flight 800 has shown, a pacified population is a vulnerable one.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47828

http://www4.passur.com/lax.html is the LAX airport monitor website referred to in the article, for those who want to see for themselves.

[Petronas]

In-flight rampage has passengers questioning safety rules
December 10, 2005 06:00 PM

A man faces federal charges after running toward the cockpit aboard a flight bound for Honolulu on Friday night. As KHON2 first reported, passengers tackled the man as he neared the front of the plane. Passengers aboard that plane say more should be done to empower crew and improve safety. Santiago Lol Tizol is in federal custody after a rampage that injured one man and scared dozens on a Northwest flight to Honolulu from Los Angeles on Friday. Tizol is a Mexican national who has lived on the Big Island, where his criminal record includes two DUIs. No word yet if he was on any substances last night.

Passengers say for more than 2 hours, he roamed the aisles, rambled about needing medication, and made threatening gestures toward a mother and baby. That's when one father made a plan.

"We got the word around first class that if he makes a move for the cockpit door, he's going down, and that's just what happened," said passenger Mike Deckard of California, traveling with his wife and two young sons. "He made a move for the cockpit door and we were on top of him." It took 7 passengers to subdue Tizol. He bit one passenger in the process. "Once I got him back to the middle with the other guy, we were screaming for help to get other people up," Deckard said. "There was more assistance needed."

The plane landed, and Tizol was arrested. "Based on what we have so far this does rise to a federal crime," said FBI Special Agent Brandon Simpson.

Passengers say they were glad to help but are concerned there wasn't an air marshal aboard. "I fly a lot and I think we need one on every flight," Deckard said. "Forget it. I don't care how much it costs me as a traveler to have that man sitting on that plane."

Hours before Tizol's charge toward the cockpit, flight attendants debated what to do. "He had some type of cord in his hand, and they were trying to get the cord away from him, and trying to make a decision whether they were going to subdue him at that point," Deckard said. The crew didn't opt to restrain him. "I think the captain should have a lot more power than he has," Deckard said. "He should have the ability to restrain an individual that he feels is threatening his aircraft, and he shouldn't be held liable for that."

Northwest has not yet responded to calls seeking comment, but federal agents say the situation was handled appropriately. "It sounds like things were done by the flight crew, by the pilot, by the passengers to the best of their abilities," Simpson said. "The reality is we've got to take care of one another, and we've got to look and be vigilant and look out for these kinds of things," Deckard said. The suspect makes his first court appearance Monday on a criminal charge of interfering with a flight crew. Tizol may also face assault charges for biting another passenger during his restraint.

http://khon.com/khon/displayStory.cfm?storyID=9609

[Petronas]

Bomb comment causes jet evacuation
December 17, 2005

A SOUTHWEST Airlines jet was evacuated at an airport in the Los Angeles region yesterday after a passenger was reportedly heard to say the word 'bomb', prompting a security alert, authorities said. The Southwest flight had been taxiing to takeoff at Bob Hope airport in Burbank, California when the evacuation was ordered, said an airport spokesman.

"This incident is related to a remark by a passenger," airport spokesman Victor Gill told local television. A woman passenger onboard the flight told KCAL9 television she had heard a male passenger, who she said had been drinking alcohol, say the word 'bomb', prompting the security scare and the plane's evacuation.

"We were on the plane going to Las Vegas, there was a group of 25, somebody among them said something inappropriate," the woman, identified as Carol, told KCAL9. "He said the B word. It was a male, he was drunk. We heard the word. We were ready to take off, but a few minutes later the marshalls were on the airplane," she said. ...

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17595764%255E1702,00.html

[Petronas]

According to Chalk's website http://www.chalksoceanairways.com/sub4.htm , the Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard carries up to 17 passengers - it seems there were 18 on board here.

NTSB to Examine Fla. Plane Crash Wreckage
December 20, 2005 9:58 AM EST

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Federal investigators searched for evidence Tuesday, hoping to explain why a seaplane broke apart and plunged into the ocean just off Miami Beach, killing all 20 people on board, including three infants. Acting National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Mark Rosenker said Tuesday that investigators hope to find the cockpit voice recorder to see if it provides any clues to why the 58-year-old Chalk's Ocean Airways plane crashed moments after taking off Monday. The plane had no flight data recorder. Much of the wreckage, including the main fuselage, was expected to be raised from about 35 feet of water on Tuesday. Nineteen bodies had been recovered; the 20th was still missing, Rosenker said.

Rosenker told reporters at an impromptu news conference that investigators would look into all possible causes and urged witnesses who made amateur video or photos of the crash to come forward. A Coast Guard security video will also be reviewed. But he said most of the answers would come from examining the wreckage, in the channel called Government Cut that is used by cruise ships and freighters, and said the investigation could take a year.

One amateur video obtained by CNN showed the main part of the aircraft slamming into the water followed by a flaming object that was trailing thick black smoke. Petty Officer Ryan Doss said the Coast Guard video, which wasn't being made public, didn't capture as much as the CNN video. "You see the plane taking off and it goes off into the distance. Then you see smoke," Doss said.

Although the seaplane - a twin-engine Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard - was built in 1947, Rosenker said there was no reason to believe that the company's entire fleet was not airworthy. The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration both sent teams, and five small boats containing investigators were at the site early Tuesday. FBI officials said there was no immediate indication of terrorism or criminal intent. Two crew members and 18 passengers were on the flight to Bimini in the Bahamas. Many of the victims were returning home to the 7-mile-long island after Christmas shopping jaunts.

Maurice D'Giovianni, 42, one of the throngs of surfers at the beach, said he heard a distinct "Boom!" before a wing fell off and the plane tumbled into the water trailing flames and smoke. "It exploded in the air, and one of the wings flew out of there," D'Giovianni said. "The other part of the plane was on fire and it just went straight down, like a mosquito."

Coast Guard spokesman Dana Warr also saw the plane take off and then heard the crash. "I saw the aircraft take off like it does every other time. I didn't think anything of it when I saw the black smoke from the pier, until I then heard the Coast Guard alarms go off," he said. The plane was operating under visual flight rules, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. ...

Chalk's is too small to fall under the federal guidelines that require passengers and their luggage be inspected by Transportation Security Administration screeners, said Dale Karlen, federal security director at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Coast Guard Capt. James Maes said the main part of the plane's fuselage was in about 35 feet of water that is subject to strong tidal currents because of the narrow ship channel. Ship traffic in and out of the port was suspended indefinitely, Maes added. That includes three large cruise ships that had been scheduled to depart Monday afternoon.

The crashed plane, registered to Seaplane Adventures LLC in Greenwich, Conn., and operated by Chalk's, previously had few major reported incidents, and no passengers or crew were injured in any of them, according to the FAA. Chalk's aircraft had been converted from piston engines to turboprops, and their avionics systems had been upgrades, the company said. Chalk's general manager Roger Nair said it was the airline's first accident with a passenger fatality. Two pilots died when their seaplane crashed near Key West in March 1994. ...

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20051220/43a78fd0_3ca6_1552620051220921054624

[al-Canine]

Words `suicide bomber' scrawled in journal set off scare on SJ-bound flight

SANTA CRUZ MAN SET FREE AFTER QUESTIONING

FBI agents and San Jose police spent several hours questioning a Santa Cruz man Wednesday after a fellow passenger on a Frontier Airlines jet from Denver glimpsed ``suicide bomber'' written on the man's journal.

Convinced he wasn't part of terrorist plot, they then set him free.

``Whatever the person wrote in their journal was not against the law,'' police spokesman Enrique Garcia said.

But the writing was enough to alarm a passenger who notified a crew member on Flight 169 about 40 minutes after take-off that the man was acting bizarrely, writing in his journal and clutching his backpack.

Authorities boarded the plane and escorted the 36-year-old man off the jet after it landed safely at Mineta San Jose International Airport with 112 passengers aboard.

The legal distinction between writing the words ``suicide bomber'' and saying it aloud on a plane is all about ``context,'' said Special Agent LaRae K. Quy, spokeswoman for the FBI's San Francisco office.

If someone shouted ``bomb,'' Quy said, authorities would be able to quickly discern the intent.

But written words aren't so obvious. For example, authorities would have to determine who wrote the offending words and parse its meaning, she said. Are the words the name of a book? A movie? The name of a band? What is the person's background?

Quy couldn't say Wednesday whether investigators believe the man had written ``suicide bomber'' on the journal.

However, she noted, there was ``no reason to believe there was any sort of terrorist activity going on there.''

Wednesday's incident served to underscore the ongoing struggle to balance air traffic safety concerns with an individual's constitutional rights in a post-9/11 world.

But Garcia said police and federal agents had little choice but to check out the passenger.

``It was alarming enough to concern that passenger about their safety and the safety of everyone on that flight,'' Garcia said.

``How do you know if he doesn't have a weapon or if somebody else is working in concert with him?''

The plane touched down in San Jose about 10:10 a.m., and was steered away from the two terminals, said San Jose Sgt. Nick Muyo. FBI agents and police officers then boarded the plane and detained the man.

Authorities suspected the man might be under the influence of alcohol or a drug as they interviewed him and are awaiting toxicology tests results, Garcia said.

The jetliner was returned to service, airport spokeswoman Marina Renneke said. Frontier's return flight to Denver departed about half an hour late, but no other planes were delayed.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13551154.htm

[Petronas]

United States (Country threat level - 3): An SUV drove through the fence at Teterboro Airport (KTEB/TEB) in New Jersey and hit a corporate jet on the morning of 12 January 2006 after the driver -- an 18-year-old woman -- fell asleep at the wheel. The vehicle struck the aircraft's wing tip, and reports indicate that the aircraft sustained minor damage. Local officials stated that while the driver did not intend to breach the airport perimeter, her ability to do so highlights the weakness of perimeter fencing at the facility. Currently, the northern border of the airport is lined with wrought iron fencing while the border along Industrial Avenue -- the site of the accident -- is lined with a chain link fence. It is not known if airport officials will upgrade the fencing in this area in response to the incident.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 1/13/2006

[Petronas]

South Korea / Japan (Country threat levels - 3 / 2): Police officials announced on 16 January 2006 that a former Asiana Airlines employee is under investigation for letting people borrow airline identification cards to enter Japan as illegal immigrants. The people who borrowed the identification cards allegedly posed as Asiana Airline employees to gain entry to Japan at Narita International Airport (RJAA/NRT). The man under investigation also reportedly shared airport pass codes so the immigrants could enter restricted areas of the airport. It is not known how many people entered Japan in this fashion. An investigation remains ongoing.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 1/16/2006

[Petronas]

3rd Risk Warning for LAX in 3 Years
February 18, 2006

Security experts released their third warning in as many years Friday that passengers in line in lobbies and on sidewalks at Los Angeles International Airport are vulnerable to luggage or car bomb attacks. They also recommended, for the second time, that airlines add ticket agents and the federal Transportation Security Administration hire more screeners to speed travelers to secure gate areas. "The crowded public areas at LAX continue to be an attractive target for terrorist bombs," Rand Corp. researchers wrote in a strongly worded, 64-page report commissioned by Los Angeles World Airports.

"Unfortunately, two categories of vulnerability at LAX have not changed," the study's 13 authors found. "First, the terminals are still overcrowded at times that are easily predictable by a terrorist. Second, there is nothing to stop or deter a terrorist from driving a large truck or car bomb into the" central terminal area.

The Santa Monica think tank urged the city to build permanent checkpoints at the airport's six entrances to reduce the risk of car-bomb attacks — a proposal it originally made in 2004.

Security advocates expressed frustration at the findings and insisted that airport officials quit studying risks and take action. "To me this is 'Get rid of the damn lines,' part three," said City Councilman Jack Weiss, who sits on the council committee that oversees the airport agency. "This is not the Manhattan Project. All LAX, the airlines and the TSA need to do is hire a handful of extra staffers."

Even though officials have spent $175 million to fortify LAX since Sept. 11, 2001, the airport is still considered the state's top terrorist target. It also has been singled out in the past: Al Qaeda operative Ahmed Ressam planned to attack LAX on New Year's Eve 1999 by "placing bombs in four luggage carts and exploding them simultaneously in four different terminals," Rand wrote.

In Friday's study, Rand rebutted letters issued by airport officials last spring that said it would cost too much for airlines to add agents at LAX and for the city to staff permanent vehicle checkpoints. Researchers reiterated that these measures were the quickest and cheapest ways to protect passengers.

The study also found that one suggestion — adding polyester film to oversized windows in nine terminals that face the airport's horseshoe-shaped roadway — would not add much protection. That is because about 85% of those windows are tempered glass, analysts found, which is designed to break under pressure into little nuggets that are unlikely to cause major injuries or deaths. The remaining 15%, or 20,000 square feet, of windows that front the Tom Bradley International Terminal are laminated with layers of security film between sheets of glass.

Rand researchers found that if a 1,000-pound car bomb in a sport utility vehicle were detonated in front of Terminal 6, glass would shatter throughout the airport, but the glass probably would not cause many casualties. Deaths would occur as far as 500 feet from the blast — up to halfway across the central terminal area. "There would be a high number of deaths inside the terminal from structural failure and falling debris," they wrote. "Those who survive would be sprayed with small bits of broken tempered glass from the windows."

The finding is a setback for politicians who hoped reinforcing the airport's windows would be a quick fix to protect crowds. Instead, they still face the intractable problem of shortening lines even as traffic grows at the world's fifth-busiest airport. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who promised reinforced windows at LAX during his campaign last year, said in a statement that he has asked airport officials "to immediately consider the recommendations."

At LAX, officials said they have made significant progress in shortening lines. They opened 21 additional security checkpoint lanes in the last three years, reducing the average wait during busy periods from 16 minutes to 11, according to the TSA. Airlines said wait times at ticket counters also have decreased as passengers became more comfortable with automated check-in machines and learned to print boarding passes at home.

Carriers dispute Rand's findings that adding several ticket agents during busy periods would significantly reduce lines. Lines worsened at LAX when security was tightened after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and explosives-detection machines reduced space in some terminal lobbies by as much as 40%. Airport officials expect shorter lines by 2009 after the truck-sized machines are removed and placed in a new, $400-million baggage system.

Under its $900,000 contract with the airport agency, Rand will complete additional LAX fortification studies by this fall, including a plan "to motivate airlines to help reduce crowding in terminals." It will assess the "acceptable density" of passengers in terminal lobbies and research how vehicle checkpoints can be staffed affordably and which technologies work to screen cars quickly.

The forthcoming studies drew criticism Friday. "LAX needs immediate security measures, not another eight months of studying 3-year-old recommendations," Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) said in a statement. "The victims of Hurricane Katrina will tell you that knowing what's coming matters much less than what steps are taken to mitigate the impact."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax18feb18,0,4941525.story?coll=la-home-local

[al-Canine]

LaGuardia terminal evacuated; departures halted

Man disappears after being singled out for security screening

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Delta terminal at LaGuardia Airport in New York City was evacuated for about two hours Friday after a man whose shoes provided an initial positive alert for explosives left the screening area, the Transportation Security Administration said.

Authorities gave no indication whether the man had been found.

TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said the man had taken off his shoes for the test, but then put them back on and left about 2:50 p.m. before authorities had finished screening him.

"TSA Security and Port Authority Police are searching for him now," she said at the time. "He's going to have to come out at some point."

Davis said she was not sure why the man had been targeted for what the TSA calls a secondary screening -- which involves security officers passing a metal-detecting wand around a person's body.

The TSA said an electronic trace detection machine returned a positive alert for explosives, but such machines also can give an alert on benign substances.

Authorities said they were stopping all outgoing flights from terminal D until the man is found, and Delta spokesman Anthony Black said takeoffs should resume around 7 p.m. Inbound flights were not affected.

Passengers were allowed back into the terminal at around 5 p.m., and everyone was in the process of being screened again, said TSA spokesman Darin Kayser.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/10/airport.evacuation/index.html

[al-Canine]

U.S. expanding behavior profiling at airports

TSA agents to monitor passengers for signs of ‘stress, fear and deception’

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will soon use more behavioral profiling at American airports to detect suspicious activity, a top official said Thursday.

TSA Director Kip Hawley said the agency would expand a pilot program that has trained officers to observe passengers’ behavior currently at about a dozen airports. He said it will be expanded after the summer travel rush.

“We are looking at expanding ... as another layer of security,” Hawley said. “We have been very pleased with its effectiveness. We expect it to be an important part of our security going forward.”

TSA officials would not identify which “highest risk” airports will be included in the expanded program.

The program began at Boston’s Logan International Airport -- the departure point for the two hijacked airplanes that were crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. It is also being implemented in Miami among other airports.

Lessons from overseas
George Naccara, the federal security director at Logan, said the TSA program is modeled on behavior detection systems used in Israel and some other countries.

“It’s been very effective overseas,” Naccara said, where the effort “is much more confrontational and much more aggressive.”

Officers are taught to look for abnormal behavior in passengers, such as people wearing coats when it’s warm in order to disguise bombs, or people acting fidgety or nervous.

Naccara said they look for signs of “stress, fear and deception.”

“We associate that with people who are doing something wrong -- some kind of criminal or terrorist intent,” he said.

The officers must be able to differentiate between nervous travelers and those having something to hide, he added.

Form of racial profiling?
Some civil rights groups have complained the program involves racial profiling. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Massachusetts Port Authority over its behavior pattern recognition program.

TSA officials said race is not used to monitor passengers. Officers fill out a score sheet identifying behaviors that trigger extra screening for a passenger or police attention.

“The vast majority of those referred to law enforcement ... do in fact have something wrong,” said Hawley. “They are either illegal for false ID, immigration status, drugs or prohibited items.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12858684/

[al-Canine]

Report: Agency policies put air marshals at risk

Marshals spokesman disputes congressional draft report

From Mike M. Ahlers | CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Federal Air Marshal Service is jeopardizing the safety of rank-and-file officers with policies that could reveal the identities of the plainclothes marshals, congressional investigators said in a draft report obtained Friday by CNN.

The service's dress code and check-in procedures at airports and hotels make it harder for the marshals to remain anonymous, the House Judiciary Committee draft report states.

The report is the product of a two-year investigation.

The criticisms in the congressional draft report have previously appeared in media accounts, and marshals service spokesman Dave Adams said Friday that many of its conclusions were inaccurate or reflect outdated policies.

The report goes on to criticize the service for allowing several major media outlets -- including CNN -- to do profiles of marshals at work, stating that the coverage revealed details that could help terrorists spot air marshals on planes.

The report also says service officials have unduly restricted air marshals' free speech rights and have retaliated against marshals who have publicly complained about service policies.

The 28-page draft report was written by investigators on the House Judiciary Committee at the behest of committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican. The draft will be discussed at a meeting Thursday, when the committee could adopt it or take other action, committee spokesman Jeff Lungren said.

The Federal Air Marshal program, which puts plainclothes officers on airplanes, started in the early 1960s in reaction to airplane hijackings and grew to include nearly 400 officers in 1987. But the numbers dwindled to 33 before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, after which the program was revitalized. Although the number of air marshals is classified, it is believed that there are several thousand.

The report addresses the following areas:

Dress codes

Grooming and dress codes requiring air marshals to wear a jacket or suit "simply does not advance a goal of having Federal Air Marshals blend in with the traveling public in all circumstances," the report states. It recommends a dress code that "reasonably reflects the nature of modern air travel."

Adams said that criticism was outdated. The agency changed its policy in 2005 to allow air marshals to dress in clothing appropriate to the area they are traveling in, he said.

Hotel check-in

The agency requires air marshals to stay at designated hotels and show service credentials to desk clerks, the draft report states. That practice "unnecessarily jeopardized their identity and, subsequently, national security," it states.

The policy has allowed hotels to expose the presence of air marshals as guests, the report states. In fact, the Sheraton at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport once declared the agency "company of the month" for booking rooms at the hotel.

Adams disputed that, saying air marshals are required to show federal government identification, but not air marshal identification, to get government room rates. He said the practice does not jeopardize security.

Boarding procedures

The report states procedures for bypassing airport checkpoints and boarding aircraft expose air marshals to detection by terrorists. The armed air marshals must show identification to airport screeners to bypass checkpoints, and they must pre-board planes to notify airline pilots and crews of their presence.

Adams said federal regulations require air marshals to show a picture ID and badge to airplane crews. The policies are designed to prevent "blue-on-blue" incidents -- cases in which law enforcement officers mistake other law enforcement officers for miscreants.

Because air marshals should not flash identification in front of the general public, the only reasonable way to identify themselves is by pre-boarding, Adams said.

The draft report recommends that the agency open discussions with other entities to ensure than anonymous boarding procedures are available.

Media coverage

The report also expresses concerns about marshals officials' "over-eagerness to disclose sensitive security information to national media outlets," noting that several news organizations have been allowed to fly along with air marshals and observe their training.

NBC and CNN have both accompanied air marshals on missions, though neither network showed the air marshals' faces nor revealed details of the operations deemed sensitive by the agency.

But, the draft report states, the broadcasts and other print coverage revealed details that could help terrorists. The report states that the FBI told the Federal Air Marshal Service that an al Qaeda terrorist in custody "was able to devise a plan of attack based upon information" in a Fox News report.

The captured terrorist, according to a report in the Army Times newspaper, gleaned information from a Fox News broadcast of January 7, 2006 -- including where air marshals typically sit and their hand-to-hand combat techniques -- that could help defeat air marshals.

Adams questioned the reliability of the terrorist, saying that Fox never accompanied an air marshal on a mission and that he can find no record of the supposed January 7 news report.

Adams said the organization has been careful in dealing with the media and that no sensitive information has been released.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/19/air.marshal

[Petronas]

'Airlines terror plot' disrupted
Thursday, 10 August 2006, 14:16 GMT 15:16 UK

A plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the US and commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said.
It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft. Police are searching premises after 21 people were arrested. Home Secretary John Reid said they believed the "main players" were accounted for. High security is causing delays at all UK airports.

The threat level to the UK has been raised by MI5 to critical after the arrests in London, High Wycombe and Birmingham. Critical threat level - the highest - means "an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK". nThree US airlines are believed to have been targeted.

Mr Reid said had the attack gone ahead it would have caused a loss of life of "unprecedented scale". He said they were "confident" the main players were in custody, but neither the police nor government are "in any way complacent".

Prime Minister Tony Blair, on holiday in the Caribbean, paid tribute to the the police and the security services. He said they had tracked the situation for a "long period of time" and had "been involved in an extraordinary amount of hard work."

"I thank them for the great job they are doing in protecting our country. There has been an enormous amount of co-operation with the US authorities which has been of great value and underlines the threat we face and our determination to counter it," he said in a statement.

BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the plot was thought to have involved a series of "waves" of simultaneous attacks, targeting three planes each time. He also said the plan "revolved around liquids of some kind". "Officials say the explosives would have been sophisticated and extremely effective," our correspondent said.

Meanwhile, at Heathrow Airport some incoming short-haul flights have resumed, with long-haul services seriously delayed. Several outbound services have also been cancelled. The airport is crammed with thousands of passengers, while at Stansted more than 2,000 people are queuing to pass through customs. Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said the alleged plotters had intended "mass murder on an unimaginable scale".

"We are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and to commit, quite frankly, mass murder," he said. "We believe that the terrorists' aim was to smuggle explosives on to aeroplanes in hand luggage and to detonate these in flight. We also believe that the intended targets were flights from the United Kingdom to the United States of America."

Police had spoken to a "good number of community leaders to make them aware that a major operation was under way," he added. Head of the Met's anti-terrorist branch Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said the investigation had had "global dimensions" and had seen an "unprecedented level" of surveillance.

The decision to take action had been taken on Wednesday night, he added. According to BBC sources the "principal characters" suspected of being involved in the plot were British-born. There are also understood to be links to Pakistan.

BBC home affairs correspondent Andy Tighe said police sources had told him they had found "interesting items" which were being examined.

In other major developments:


Houses in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, are evacuated by police

US air marshals are being sent to the UK to provide extra air security

The US Department of Homeland Security increased the threat level applied to US-bound commercial flights originating in the UK to "red" - the first time it has done this for flights coming in from another country

The Home Office confirmed there had been meetings overnight and on Thursday morning of the Cabinet's emergency committee, Cobra, chaired by Home Secretary John Reid, to discuss the terror alert

A spokesman for Number 10 said Tony Blair had briefed US President George Bush on the situation during the night

BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said despite the arrests the threat level had been raised "in case there is some other sub-plot, back-up plot around this that the police aren't aware of".

The Department for Transport set out the details of the security measures at UK airports. Passengers are not allowed to take any hand luggage on to any flights in the UK, the department said. Only the barest essentials - including passports and wallets - will be allowed to be carried on board in transparent plastic bags. "We hope that these measures, which are being kept under review by the government, will need to be in place for a limited period only," the statement said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4778575.stm

[Petronas]

Air Security International World Watch Monitor activated. This only happens in extraordinary circumstances. Expect for it to become inactive again when the current crisis has passed.

MONITOR STATUS: ACTIVE

Air Security International has activated the World Watch Monitor in response to the terrorist plot to attack international flights traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States. This page will be continually updated as new information becomes available. All times listed are U.S. Central (GMT -5)

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0958: According to reports airline carrier BMI has restarted incoming short-haul flights to Heathrow for domestic and European airports except Spain.

0955: Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) Information on United States flight delays: http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp

0915: Massachusetts Governor calls on the Massachusetts National Guard to assist with security at Logan International airport (KBOS/BOS)

0910: Airports in Denmark and Sweden reportedly increased airport security and have suspended all flights to London airports.

0815: ASI UPDATE

The United Kingdom upgraded its threat level from 'severe' to 'critical' on 10 August 2006 in response to an uncovered terrorist plot to attack international flights traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States. Scotland Yard discovered the bomb plot after a months-long investigation and media reports state that approximately 21 people were arrested in relation to the alleged plot that may have included as many as 20 separate attacks on aircraft. Sources indicate that the terrorist plot involved the use of explosive devices in carry-on luggage and the possible use of a liquid explosive or liquid chemical weapon. It reportedly targeted United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines aircraft that were to fly to New York, Washington, D.C., and California.

All airports in the United Kingdom immediately went on the highest-level security alert, with officials searching all carry-on bags and limiting all carry-on items. All onboard baggage is being inspected as well. Only the following items can be carried on in clear plastic bags after inspection:

-Wallets and pocket-purses
-Essential travel documents
-Medicine (non-liquid and verified necessary for the flight)
-Glasses (no cases)
-Contact lens holders (no solution)
-Baby food or milk
-Sanitary items (baby wipes, feminine items and tissue paper)
-Non-electrical keys.

All electronic devices, including laptop computers and mobile phones are banned and no items will be permitted in passengers’ pockets. Security prohibits all liquids from aircraft, and secondary searches at the gate have become mandatory. Increased security measures apply to all passengers and all flights, including passengers transferring between flights. In addition, the U.S. government will send additional air marshals to the U.K. in an effort to prevent attacks.

London’s Heathrow Airport (EGLL/LHR) is closed to all incoming flights until at least 1500 local time and has cancelled all short- and medium-hall flights until further notice. Other affected airports in the U.K. include Birmingham, Luton, Cardiff, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Manchester, Prestwick, Dundee and Belfast. Airports throughout Europe are also experiencing significant delays, particularly as some flights from the United Kingdom are being diverted to these locations. Some of the most significant developments are:

-Several flights suspended at Gatwick Airport (EGKK/LGW)
-Several flights suspended at Edinburgh Airport (EGPH/EDI)
-More than one third of all outbound flights have been cancelled at Stansted (EGSS/STN)
-All flights from Athens to London are cancelled
-Lufthansa has cancelled all flights into EGLL
-easyJet has cancelled all flights out of EGSS
-Iberia has cancelled all flights into the United Kingdom
-As many as 90 percent of all flights in Spain are delayed

Delays may also occur at Channel ports and at the Eurotunnel train terminal due to increased security and as delayed airline passengers are likely to use the train as an alternative method of transit. Virgin West Coast will accept London to Manchester airline tickets on its trains.

An International Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) has temporarily removed the U.K. as one the authorized portals to enter the U.S. Any flights going to and from the U.K. to the U.S. will now require a waiver. Aircraft wishing to enter the U.S. will need to do so from another portal, such as Mexico, Canada and Caribbean locations.

Meanwhile the threat level in the United States has been increased for the transportation sector; the overall threat level for the country currently remains at yellow, or “elevated.” The threat level for commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States was raised to its highest level, while the threat level for all other flights coming or going from the United States was raised slightly. Beverages, hair gels and lotions have reportedly been banned on U.S. flights. Multiple commercial flights between the United States and London have been canceled to accommodate airport delays currently being experienced at British facilities. Airport delays are expected to continue throughout the day and flights are currently delayed in cities including Houston, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., Baltimore and New York.

Regular flight delays are being reported throughout locations in Asia, Africa and the Middle East; however, more significant delays may occur throughout the day. Security has also been increased in airports throughout Latin America. Reports indicate that at most international airports passengers and their luggage are being searched extensively, particularly those traveling to the United States. Operations, however, are being conducted as usual and only common delays are occurring. Travelers with scheduled flights departing from Latin America should arrive at the airport well in advance, as check-in times will likely increase considerably in the next few hours as the airports get busier.

Airport delays are expected to continue worldwide at least for the next several days. People expecting to travel within the next several days should contact their airline to receive updated security and flight information. Furthermore, passengers should be aware that shops at several airports in the United Kingdom, in particular, are closed as a result of increased security precautions. Travelers should be prepared for long delays and limited access to restaurant and banking facilities. Corporate aviation passengers should also expect delays for the next several days, particularly during security checks and when transiting through customs, immigration and quarantine.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

0705: The United Kingdom upgraded its threat level from 'severe' to 'critical' on 10 August 2006 in response to an uncovered terrorist plot to attack international flights traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States. Scotland Yard discovered the bomb plot after a months-long investigation and media reports state that approximately 20 people were arrested in relation to the alleged plot that may have included as many as 20 separate attacks on air craft. Sources indicate that the terrorist plot involved the use of explosive devices and the possible use of a liquid explosive or liquid chemical weapon. It reportedly targeted United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines aircraft that were to fly to New York, Washington, D.C., and California.

All airports in the United Kingdom immediately went on the highest-level security alert, with officials searching all carry-on bags and limiting all carry-on items. All onboard baggage is being inspected as well. Only the following items can be carried on in clear plastic bags after inspection: wallets and pocket-purses, essential travel documents; medicine (non-liquid and verified necessary for the flight); glasses (no cases); contact lens holders (no solution); baby food or milk; sanitary items (baby wipes, unboxed tampons and tissue paper); and non-electrical keys. All electronic devices, including laptop computers and mobile phones are banned. Security prohibits all liquids from aircraft, and secondary searches at the gate have become mandatory. Increased security measures apply to all passengers and all flights, including passengers transferring between flights.

Following the alert, London’s Heathrow Airport (EGLL/LHR) closed to all incoming flights until at least 1500 local time. Belfast advised early check in with no carry on items other than barest essentials. Birmingham, Cardiff, Gatwick and Stansted issued the same restrictions. Luton Airport (EGGW/LTN) in London stated that the "members of the public not traveling... will not be allowed within the terminal building." Delays are expected at all airports in the United Kingdom and in the United States as a result of the increased security measures and as dozens of flights between the United Kingdom and the United States and various cities in Europe have been cancelled.

Meanwhile in the United States, security has been increased as well. While the threat level was increased for the transportation sector, the overall threat level for the country has remained at yellow, or “elevated.” The threat level for commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States was raised to its highest level, while the threat level for all other flights coming or going from the United States was raised slightly. Beverages, hair gels and lotions have reportedly been banned on U.S. flights, in response to the treat of a liquid explosive device. Multiple commercial flights between the United States and London have been canceled to accommodate airport delays currently being experienced at British facilities. Airport delays are expected to continue throughout the day and flights are currently delayed in cities including Houston, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

http://monitor.airsecurity.com/

[Petronas]

Current as of: Thursday - 10 August 2006 GMT
The Current Time is: 23:59 GMT
All times listed are U.S. Central (GMT -5)

1315: Police officials continue to urgently search for five people thought to be connected to the alleged terror plot.

1250: Reports indicate five suspects in the terror plot in London are still at large and aggressively being pursued.

http://monitor.airsecurity.com/

[Petronas]

TERRORISM: FOILED HIJACKING OF QATAR AIRWAYS PLANE, AL JAZEERA REPORT
Aug-10-06 17:26

A possible attempt to hijack a Qatar Airways aeroplane travelling from the Jordanian capital Amman, to Doha in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday has been foiled. According to a report on the Arab satelitte TV channel Al Jazeera, quoting a passenger on that flight, authorities arrested the alleged hijacker, a young man in his 20s, whose nationality was not clear but appeared to be of African origin.

According to the same source, five minutes after take off, shots were heard in the plane and the man rushed to the aircraft's toilet. He was stopped due to the intervention of the airline staff and some passengers on the flight.

The news of the attempted hijacking came a few hours after British police confirmed that they had foiled an alleged terrorist plot to blow up various aeroplanes travelling between Britain and the United States.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.329648414&par=0

[Petronas]

Q&A: Liquid explosives
Thursday, 10 August 2006, 13:51 GMT 14:51 UK

An alleged plot to blow up planes from the UK mid-flight and cause "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said.
It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft. BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the plan "revolved around liquids of some kind". One theory is that the attack may have involved liquid explosive being carried on to a plane in either drink bottles or cans.

Dr Clifford Jones, an explosives expert from the University of Aberdeen, says even a small amount of liquid explosives carried on to an aircraft would result in a catastrophic explosion.

What are liquid explosives?

The best place to start is with the term "high explosive"; these can be either solid or liquid. Of course, the most famous ones are solid, such as Dynamite and TNT. One liquid explosive is a general use explosive that is used in quarries. However, I would not be surprised if it is possible to produce solid explosives in liquid form.

How do they work?

Usually when something burns, it is subsonic and there is very little pressure effect. With high explosives, the rate of burning is extremely rapid and exceeds the speed of sound. As a result of that there is something called "overpressure" - pressure greater than the surrounding atmospheric pressure.

Massive overpressure is not needed to cause damage. An excess of 1% can break windows, and an overpressure of 10% can harm or kill people and cause structural damage to buildings. An overpressure of just 2% could break the windows of the aeroplane, and 10% would wreck the aircraft and possibly kill the people in it before it reached the ground. By the time the damage is caused, the chemistry has finished and physics has taken over.

How are they made?

There are such things as liquid explosives that are high explosives and they behave in exactly the same way as solid explosives, such as TNT. But there are also explosives that are made by mixing a solid and a liquid - one being the oxidant and the other being the fuel. Unlike most high explosives, they do not contain the fuel and oxidant in the same molecule but they do contain them in sufficiently close contact to cause a blast.

Are the components difficult to get hold of?

No, it is very easy. Ordinary household substances could be used.

Specialist knowledge or equipment needed to make?

If someone wanted to obtain a solid high explosive in a liquid form, it would not be difficult for a trained chemical technologist. But if someone was using a backyard laboratory it is more likely they would go for the two component approach. Not a lot of experience is needed, the principles are quite simple but it would be a hazardous process of trial and error. I would not want to be messing about these things. It has been known for schoolboys to go home and attempt this and blow their house up.

Could an explosive device be carried on to an aeroplane?

The size of a device necessary could be carried in hand baggage. Explosives in a toilet bag, certainly inside a shoulder bag would be enough to meet the terrorists' needs. They could be quite hard to detect because I do not think any of the things we have mentioned would respond to x-rays. For example, a liquid hydrocarbon fuel could pass as mineral water. The question is how do you get something packed into a bag so it does not look suspicious?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4780391.stm

[Petronas]

Systems Exist to Find Liquid Explosives
August 11, 2006 8:01 PM EDT

While the process isn't perfect, scanning machines do exist to detect liquid explosives like the ones purportedly at the heart of the terrorist plot broken up this week. But don't expect the machines to be rushed into airports soon. Cost and logistical issues present challenges for these devices.

Consider work that's been done at Rapiscan Systems, part of OSI Systems Inc. Rapiscan is developing four kinds of devices - some based on technologies more than 10 years old - that can detect liquid or gel-based explosives. Two that would work on carry-on bags already have been tested by the Transportation Security Administration and "could be deployed this afternoon," said Peter Kant, the company's vice president for government affairs.

But none are being used in the United States. Some are in place overseas, though Kant said those aren't in airports. One big reason is that it is not easy to integrate the explosive-detecting machines, some of which can cost $250,000, into existing security checkpoints. Because each briefcase, purse or other carry-on bag has to be put in a special drawer for analysis, using the detectors could significantly bog down passenger screening.

Homeland security analyst Brian Ruttenbur of Morgan Keegan Co. also points out that the technology still produces a relatively high number of false alarms. For those reasons - and because there still has not been a successful attack using liquid explosives - Ruttenbur believes the TSA won't be pressed to overhaul the current screening regimen. That would mean a continued reliance on systems not designed to stop liquid explosives. Metal detectors figure to remain the primary method, with the main secondary screening coming from "puffer" technology that blows air on people and sniffs the particles that emerge for suspicious materials.

For a machine to detect explosives in liquid or solid form, it bombards an object with energy - such as radio waves or neutrons - and in seconds measures the reaction, a response that differs depending on the material's chemical properties. Software in the machine is programmed to alert screeners if it detects chemical signatures known to match those of dangerous materials. A key question, though, is whether this kind of detection system can realistically block terrorists from bringing seemingly innocuous liquids past security and combining them later to deadly effect.

Certainly, some common ingredients in liquid explosives can be programmed into the detector. But Kant, at Rapiscan, said he would not discuss the vulnerabilities of that approach. "Whether it detects the components of explosives and which ones, there's no way I'm putting that in print," he said.

Sean Moore, vice president of sales at a rival maker of explosive-detection systems, HiEnergy Technologies Inc., said future screening machines could be linked so that they might let a person through with one kind of liquid - but stop another traveler carrying another type of liquid that reacts explosively with what the previous person was carrying. This list of liquids to watch for, he acknowledged, would have to be constantly updated as "terrorists become more ingenious."

That scenario, however, remains a ways off. Not only are security checkpoints not networked, but HiEnergy has not sold a single device for U.S. airports. Its main project so far involves field tests on unattended packages in Philadelphia with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

A totally different kind of scanning technology that already has begun to emerge, backscatter screening, has no automated ability to detect explosives. But its backers say it nonetheless could go a long way to halting plots like the one apparently thwarted this week. Backscatter screening is much like traditional X-rays, except that the system sends more, but weaker, X-rays at an object. It can't penetrate skin, but it can reveal items under someone's clothes - such as a hidden bottle of liquid. A major problem is that the view is so powerful that an individual's private parts can be seen, which forced the TSA to delay tests while vendors tweaked the machines' programming to distort or mask bodily images. And backscatter systems still leave it up to a human screener to recognize a suspicious item.

But Joe Reiss, vice president of marketing for backscatter vendor American Science and Engineering Inc., says it makes more sense to invest in $50,000 systems like his - which might help catch a wide variety of suspicious behavior - than to zero in on liquid explosives, the technique of the moment. "The name of the game is to provide enhanced methods of detecting what people want to conceal," he said. "If you get too focused on a perfect solution for yesterday's problem, you might be missing the bigger picture."

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/tec?guid=20060811/44dc00c0_3ca6_15526200608112087343334

[Petronas]

Disturbance Diverts London-D.C. Flight
August 16, 2006 10:38 PM EDT

BOSTON - Two fighter jets were scrambled Wednesday to escort a London-to-Washington flight to an emergency landing in Boston after a disturbance in which passengers said a woman in a jogging suit paced up and down the aisle, peppering her incoherent mutterings with the word "Pakistan."

The federal official for Boston's Logan International Airport said there was no indication of terrorism, but passengers said they were unnerved by the woman and by the military response, just a week after authorities in London said they foiled a terror plot to blow up flights to the U.S. "It was a harrowing two hours," said Antony Nash, 31, who was on his way home to San Diego and was seated near the woman.

"I noticed F-15s next to the plane. I said, 'Oh my God.' And then we saw the emergency vehicles" waiting on the tarmac, Nash said.

Gov. Mitt Romney said the 59-year-old woman was from Vermont and became so claustrophobic and upset that she needed to be restrained. The FBI in Boston said the woman, a U.S. citizen, was arrested on charges of interfering with a flight crew.

Passengers said two plainclothes men on board and flight attendants ran up the aisle and tackled the petite woman, slamming her into the bathroom door, throwing her to the ground and putting her in handcuffs, passengers said.

The disturbance was enough of a concern that the pilot declared an emergency, which activated two fighter jets to escort the plane into Logan, said George Naccara, security director for the Transportation Security Administration for Massachusetts' airports.

Two F-15s were sent from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod to escort the airliner, said Master Sgt. Anthony Hill, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colo. He said the fighter pilots can intercept, shadow or escort commercial aircraft and, if ordered, shoot down an aircraft deemed to be a threat. State police and federal agencies took control of the plane after it landed.

Passengers were taken off the plane, put on a bus and taken to a terminal to be interviewed, Naccara said. Their luggage was spread out on the tarmac, where it was rechecked by security officials and trained dogs. The passengers were flown on to Washington on Wednesday evening, arriving shortly after 7 p.m.

Joan Bartko, of Manassas, Va., said everyone on the plane did as they were told. "It was sort of surreal," she said. "You just know the best thing to do is stay calm." Officials expected the passengers would be allowed onto another flight to Washington later Wednesday.

Nash said he noticed the woman's oversized handbag appeared to contain items such as lotion that he believed should not have been allowed on the plane since the new safety regulations were put in place after last week's terror plot revelations. Romney said a search of the woman's bag turned up matches and a gelatin-like substance, which he did not define, but there was no indication the items were related to terrorism. Naccara said he did not believe any items she was carrying were the cause of the emergency.

An airport spokesman, Phil Orlandella, previously confirmed broadcast reports that the woman was carrying Vaseline, a screw driver and a note referring to al-Qaida, but later backed off the statement. Naccara said it was not true.

The woman was to remain in federal custody overnight and was expected to be charged in a federal criminal complaint early Thursday, the U.S. attorney and FBI said in a joint statement. The statement did not elaborate on specific charges expected, except to say there was no evidence the incident was related to terrorism.

The flight from London's Heathrow Airport to Washington's Dulles Airport had 182 passengers and 12 crew members, said Brandon Borrman, spokesman for United Airlines parent UAL Corp.

Since the foiled terror plot surfaced in London last week, airports have tightened security in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. Liquids and gels have been banned from carry-on luggage, and even tighter restrictions are in place in the U.K. Terror scares garner particular attention in Boston because of Logan's history. Members of al-Qaida hijacked two planes from Logan on Sept. 11, 2001, and flew them into the World Trade Center towers in New York.

http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20060816/44e29840_3ca6_1552620060816421743166

[Petronas]

I am not saying that this was a dry run to test the new security procedures, but if it were, it could not have been set up better: it confirmed that items like potential stabbing weapons and incendiary substances can still be smuggled through security, and it tested at what point of suspicious behavior the flight crew would try to physically restrain the suspect. All this with an apparently mentally disturbed person who, for that reason, may not face the maximum penalty for such conduct.

A bizarre story. Sounds more like a "piss activist" than a "peace activist"...

Woman Faces Charges in Flight Scare
August 17, 2006 2:45 PM EDT

BOSTON - A woman on a trans-Atlantic flight diverted to Boston for security concerns passed several notes to crew members, urinated on the cabin floor and made comments the crew believed were references to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks, according to an affidavit filed Thursday.

Catherine C. Mayo, 59, of Braintree, Vt., appeared in federal court Thursday on a charge of interfering with a flight crew on United 923 as it flew from London to Washington, D.C., Wednesday.

She was dressed in a Rolling Stones T-shirt, black pants and socks without shoes for the hearing and was ordered held pending a detention and probable cause hearing next Thursday.

Her attorney, federal public defender Page Kelley, said Mayo was "just barely lucid" when they spoke. "She's got some very serious mental health problems."

U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said he hoped to learn more about Mayo's mental state before the next court appearance. "We believe it's important during that time period to have a doctor examine her," he said.

Mayo's son, Josh, 31, described his mother as a peace activist and said she had been in Pakistan since March. She traveled there often since making a pen pal prior to Sept. 11, 2001, he said. The pen pal hasn't been allowed to visit the U.S., he added.

"I guess she just had a bit of a bad time on the plane, and everybody's a little paranoid," the son said.

The scare aboard United 923 came just a week after London authorities said they foiled a terror plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights. As many as 17 people have been arrested in Pakistan in connection with the London terror plot, but federal officials have said they have no indications that Mayo had any links to terrorism.

The count against Mayo carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

Mayo's passport indicates she left Pakistan and entered the United Kingdom on Tuesday, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Daniel Choldin filed in U.S. District Court in Boston.

In the affidavit, Choldin says flight attendants noticed Mayo about 90 minutes into the flight because she was pushing against the aircraft bulkhead. When the attendant told her to return to her seat, Mayo said she wanted to speak to an air marshal and made statements about knowing that people wanted to see what was in her bag.

FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz confirmed Thursday that authorities found a screwdriver and an unspecified number of cigarette lighters in her bag, items that are banned under new security regulations. Marcinkiewicz also confirmed that matches were found in Mayo's bag.

She also had a bottle of water, which did not appear to be supplied by the flight crew. It wasn't clear how the items made it through airport security, which has been significantly tightened since the terror plot arrests.

Later during the flight, according to the affidavit, Mayo asked a flight attendant: "Is this a training flight for United Flight 93?" The flight attendant didn't know if she made a mistake because the flight was actually Flight 923, or if she was referring to Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11.

She was "biting her fingers, rubbing her feet and in a constant state of movement. She appeared very agitated," the affidavit said.

She also wrote in a note and said to flight attendants that she had been in a country illegally, and later said she had photographs of Pakistan.

"She stated that the photographs would be awful, and she indicated that they related to the people that she had been with in the mountains of Pakistan," the affidavit said.

Flight attendants summoned the captain, who spoke to Mayo. During the conversation, she made reference to there being "six steps to building some unspecified thing."

"She made reference to being with people associated with two words. She stated that she could not say what the two words were because the last time that she had said the two words she had been kicked off of a flight in the United Arab Emirates," according to the affidavit.

The captain and purser both believed that she was referring to al-Qaida, Choldin wrote.

About 35 minutes later, when she tried to go to the bathroom, the flight attendants directed her to a different lavatory. Instead, she pulled down her pants and urinated on the floor, Choldin wrote in the affidavit, which was based on his interviews and those of other federal officials.

At that point, the captain ordered her restrained. Two male passengers helped a flight attendant tackle Mayo and restrain her in plastic cuffs.

The flight, with 182 passengers, landed safely at Logan Airport with the escort of two F-15 fighter jets.

http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20060817/44e3e9c0_3ca6_1552620060817-468321660

[Petronas]

Suspicious Liquid Found at W.Va. Airport
August 17, 2006 6:58 PM EDT

CEREDO, W.Va. - A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated Thursday after two bottles of liquid found in a woman's carry-on luggage twice tested positive for explosives residue, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said. "It looks like there were four items containing liquids," said TSA spokeswoman Amy von Walter. "Two of those containers tested positive."

A machine that security checkpoint screeners use to test for explosives registered positive, and a canine team also got a positive hit, von Walter said.

Larry Salyers, manager of Tri-State Airport, said the bottles would be moved by robot to a remote area of the airport where officials would attempt to detonate them. National Guard and State Police explosives experts will conduct chemical field tests to determine their contents, he said.

Salyers said he was told the woman was a 28-year-old of Pakistani descent who had moved to Huntington from Jackson, Mich. He did not know how long she had lived in Huntington. The woman was still at the airport late Thursday afternoon but was not under arrest, said FBI spokesman Jeff Killeen.

Commercial airline service was suspended, and about 100 passengers and airport employees were ordered to leave the terminal, said Tri-State Airport Authority President Jim Booton.

Two airlines - Comair and US Airways Express - serve the airport. Comair had to cancel at least one flight, but an early evening flight from Cincinnati was expected to arrive on time, a spokeswoman said. A US Airways spokeswoman said one of its flights was diverted to Charleston's Yeager Airport about 60 miles away.

A screener noticed a bottle in a woman's carry-on bag as she prepared to board the 9:15 a.m. flight to Charlotte, N.C., Booton said. One bottle contained a gel-type facial cleanser, Killeen said. The flight was allowed to leave for Charlotte, and the terminal was evacuated at 11:25 a.m., officials said.

The woman had purchased a one-way ticket to Detroit by way of Charlotte on Wednesday, Salyers said. U.S. authorities banned the carrying of liquids onto flights last week after British officials made arrests in an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound planes using explosives disguised as drinks and other common products.

Some travelers were more surprised than fearful about the discovery. "This is such a small airport. I never imagined something like this happening here," said Shannon Bloss, who was traveling to Orlando, Fla., for a wedding.

Joy and John Cloutre of Ulysses, Ky., were waiting to begin the first leg of their trip to the southeast Asian country of Brunei when the evacuation order came. "My family didn't want me to leave because of the terrorism in Brunei," Joy Cloutre told the Herald Dispatch of Huntington. "And then we don't even get out of Huntington without something like this happening."

http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20060817/44e3e9c0_3ca6_15526200608171703625369

[Petronas]

TERRORISM: CHILD STOWAWAY EXPOSES FLAWS IN 'CRITICAL' AIRPORT SECURITY
Aug-16-06 12:26

An unaccompanied 12-year-old runaway managed to board a plane at London's Gatwick airport without any passport or documentation - despite airport security being on red-alert following the alleged terrorist plot to bomb US-bound aircraft. The boy managed to get through the airport check-in, passport control and security screening, and board an early morning flight to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. He had apparently settled down with a drink and a snack before a member of Monarch Airlines cabin crew realised something was amiss.

A "security alert" was then raised by airport safety officers and local police, and the boy was escorted from the plane by two police officers. An investigation is now under way to find out how the youngster managed to evade the highest levels of security and get on the plane, the daily Guardian newspaper reported.

Gatwick airport security staff however stressed the boy posed no threat to passengers, staff or the aircraft, as he had passed through full security screening. The boy had absconded from a care home in Birkenhead, Merseyside, in northeast Britain. He has now been returned there after being held by police and collected by social workers. He is understood to have got to Gatwick by train - unaccompanied and without a ticket, which he has apparently done on a number of occasions.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.330872114&par=0

[Petronas]

Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed
12:08pm 20th August 2006

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic. Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks. It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.

The passenger revolt came as Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary was accused of using the terror crisis to make money. Government sources say he boasted to an official at the Transport Department: "Every time I appear on TV, I get a spike in sales." The Tories said the Government's failure to reassure travellers had led the Malaga passengers to 'behave irrationally' and 'hand a victory to terrorists'.

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.

The trouble in Malaga flared last Wednesday as two British citizens in their 20s waited in the departure lounge to board the pre-dawn flight and were heard talking what passengers took to be Arabic. Worries spread after a female passenger said she had heard something that alarmed her. Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches.

Initially, six passengers refused to board the flight. On board the aircraft, word reached one family. To the astonishment of cabin crew, they stood up and walked off, followed quickly by others. The Monarch pilot - a highly experienced captain - accompanied by armed Civil Guard police and airport security staff, approached the two men and took their passports. Half an hour later, police returned and escorted the two Asian passengers off the jet.

Soon afterwards, the aircraft was cleared while police did a thorough security sweep. Nothing was found and the plane took off - three hours late and without the two men on board. Monarch arranged for them to spend the rest of the night in an airport hotel and flew them back to Manchester later on Wednesday.

College lecturer Jo Schofield, her husband Heath and daughters Emily, 15, and Isabel, 12, were caught up in the passenger mutiny. Mrs Schofield, 38, said: "The plane was not yet full and it became apparent that people were refusing to board. In the gate waiting area, people had been talking about these two, who looked really suspicious with their heavy clothing, scruffy, rough, appearance and long hair. Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like, 'Those two look like they're bombers.' Then a family stood up and walked off the aircraft. They were joined by others, about eight in all. We learned later that six or seven people had refused to get on the plane. There was no fuss or panic. People just calmly and quietly got off the plane. There were no racist taunts or any remarks directed at the men. It was an eerie scene, very quiet. The children were starting to ask what was going on. We tried to play it down."

Mr Schofield, 40, an area sales manager, said: "When the men were taken off they didn't argue or say a word. They just picked up their coats and obeyed the police. They seemed resigned to the fact they were under suspicion. The captain and crew were very apologetic when we were asked to evacuate the plane for the security search. But there was no dissent. While we were waiting, everyone agreed the men looked dodgy. Some passengers were very panicky and in tears. There was a lot of talking about terrorists."

Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: "This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally. For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."

Monarch said last night: "The captain was concerned about the security surrounding the two gentlemen on the aircraft and the decision was taken to remove them from the flight for further security checks. The two passengers offloaded from the flight were later cleared by airport security and rebooked to travel back to Manchester on a later flight."

A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Malaga said: "These men had aroused suspicion because of their appearance and the fact that they were speaking in a foreign language thought to be an Arabic language, and the pilot was refusing to take off until they were escorted off the plane."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=401419&in_page_id=1770

[Petronas]

IRELAND: FLIGHT FROM U.S. EVACUATED IN SECURITY ALERT
Aug-25-06 13:53

An Aer Lingus flight from New York to Dublin was evacuated on Friday during a scheduled stop at Shannon airport in western Ireland. Reports say the passengers were being questioned by the police after a bomb threat was made against the flight and the luggage on the plane was also removed for inspection. No trace of explosives were found and the flight was eventually cleared for its onward journey to Dublin.

The threat against the Irish carrier was made in a phone call to a police station in the Irish capital. The caller said that there were explosives on board the flight. Officials from Aer Lingus stressed that the plane did not make an emergency landing and was scheduled to stop in Shannon.

Friday's threat comes after 12 Indian-born passengers, detained after a Northwest Airline flight traveling from the Netherlands to India was forced to return to Amsterdam's main airport, were release from custody. The 12 twelve people had attracted suspicion by rummaging in their plastic carry-on bags and exchanging cell phones. They were eventually released as there was no evidence that they were about to commit an act of violence.

Security has been increased at airports around the globe over the past two weeks after British police said they had foiled a plot by to blow up planes in the mid-Atlantic using liquid explosives hidden in drinks. Mumbai has also been on a high terror alert following the 11 July commuter train bombings in which 186 people were killed.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.334001802&par=0

[Petronas]

Security Incidents Disrupt U.S. Flights
Aug 26, 2006

U.S. and Argentine authorities were investigating how a stick of dynamite in a college student's checked luggage ended up on a Houston-bound flight, one of seven security incidents that disrupted U.S. flights in a day. There was no indication terrorism was involved in any of the incidents, which caused two flights to be diverted, others to be delayed and passengers to be questioned.

The dynamite was discovered during a baggage search in an inspection station at Bush Intercontinental Airport shortly after Continental Airlines Flight 52 from Argentina landed early Friday. Argentina's chief of airport security police, Marcelo Sain, said in a televised interview Friday that authorities there were in contact with U.S. officials as they opened their own probe into how the explosive got into the baggage.

The student, 21-year-old Howard McFarland Fish, was charged with carrying an explosive aboard an aircraft and was in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Omero Longoria said Fish told authorities he works in mining and often handles explosives. Fish's father, Howard, said he is certain his son, who bought the dynamite while visiting a silver mine while traveling in South America, intended no harm. "It's a 21-year-old kid not paying careful attention to the press and thinking it would be cool to have a piece of dynamite," Howard Fish, of Old Lyme, Conn., said Friday night. The younger Fish attends Lafayette College in Easton, Pa.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston said he would appear before a federal magistrate Monday. Carrying an explosive aboard an aircraft carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The incident could have been disastrous and raises questions about security in overseas airports, said Bill Waldock, aviation safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, adding that dynamite can be unstable if it's old. "You're in a pressurized airplane, you get a detonation in the cargo hold, it could blow a hole in the airplane big enough to bring it down," he said.

In other incidents:

An American Airlines flight from England to Chicago was forced to land in Bangor, Maine, after federal officials "learned of a reported threat," FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said. Marcinkiewicz said no one was arrested but declined to say if anyone from the flight out of Manchester was in custody.

A US Airways jet was diverted to Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport after a federal air marshal subdued a disruptive passenger who had pushed a flight attendant, the FBI said. The passenger was undergoing a mental evaluation, and authorities had yet to determine what criminal charges he might face. The twin-engine jet returned to flight three hours later on its trip from Phoenix to Charlotte, N.C.

A Continental Airlines flight from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Bakersfield, Calif., was held in El Paso, one of its scheduled stops, after the crew discovered a missing panel in the lavatory, authorities said.

A utility knife was found on a vacant passenger seat of a US Airways flight that had traveled from Philadelphia to Bradley International Airport in Connecticut, state police said. No arrests were made and there were no threats involved, said Master Sgt. J. Paul Vance, state police spokesman.

An Aer Lingus flight from New York to Dublin was evacuated Friday morning during a scheduled stopover in western Ireland following a bomb threat that turned out to be unfounded, officials said.

A United Airlines flight out of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was delayed because a small boy said something inappropriate, according to a government official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. "He didn't want to fly," the official said.

The Manchester-to-Chicago flight, American Airlines Flight 55, was diverted to Bangor for security reasons, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Murray said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2359285

[Petronas]

At last!

Dress Code Dropped for Undercover Air Marshals

In my last message, I remarked upon the many fine attributes that are identifiable among you, as Federal Air Marshals, and particularly noted your participation in Hurricane Katrina and the non-combatant evacuation of U.S. citizens and others from Lebanon as hallmarks of our Service, to date.
Most recently, we are engaged in providing enhanced security for international flights, and you have tirelessly responded with dedication and commitment as you entered into harm’s way in order to protect the affected passengers and crews. You have selflessly demonstrated characteristics that any law enforcement organization would be proud to claim and have acted in a manner that reflects great credit upon yourselves and our organization. Your actions define what will become a standard among the best traditions of the Federal Air Marshal Service.

In recognition of your efforts, Secretary Chertoff and Assistant Secretary Hawley have publicly recognized your response to the terrorist threat and acknowledged your professionalism and dedication. These three events – Hurricane Katrina, Lebanon, and the United Kingdom threat, clearly define the continued evolution and maturation of our organization. Each event is different from the other, and, yet, each required an aggressive response, borne out of preparation through training, a sense of professionalism, and your individual and collective willingness to accept responsibility, act decisively, and work effectively, independent of daily, direct supervision.

It is our respect for these characteristics and our confidence in our workforce that lead us to announce several changes recommended by the Working Groups and regularly supported by Federal Air Marshals and supervisors in our listening sessions, dinners, and office visits.

In furtherance of this process, I believe it is important that we introduce, develop, and memorialize a means through which your issues, concerns, suggestions, and recommendations can be identified and addressed. To that point, the Working Groups are generating work products that are exceptional in their breadth of scope, clarity of detail, and quality of recommendations.
As we strive to be inclusive in our decision making, the working groups, web access, and surveys provide a capability that allows workforce participation and gives you ownership in the process.

As we are responsive to recommendations, you receive the benefit of the change or new policy, as well as the responsibility to act with accountability, individually and collectively. At the end of the day, this is your organization and how you conduct yourselves ultimately becomes the standard by which others judge us, and by which we assess each other professionally.

Effective September 1st, the following changes will be formalized through policy, directive, or interim guidance:

The Standards of Dress Policy will be amended to allow you to dress at your discretion, recognizing that the manner of dress should allow you to blend in and not direct attention to yourself, as well as be sufficiently functional to enable you to conduct your law enforcement responsibilities, and effectively conceal your duty equipment. Changes to the Standards of Dress Policy are the result of conversations with your supervisors, working groups, listening sessions, dinner groups, and during office visits.

The Designated Hotels During TDY Mission Deployment Policy will be amended to allow you to select and book reservations at the hotels of your choice, provided that you forward your hotel information electronically in advance of reaching your destination and remain within the economic and related guidelines to be published. However, as noted in the survey, we reserve the opportunity to convert to a more transparent hotel booking process in support of promoting anonymity during check-in, which has been consistently raised as an issue, if/when we are able to create such a process and provided that the process is prudent in the larger context of associated issues.

Effective on or about September 15th, a Voluntary Transfer Policy will be established with parameters that identify the scope of availability and elements for consideration for voluntary transfer. However, in the interest of managing expectations, please understand that while the policy will establish guidelines and some number of transfers are anticipated, the policy, the number of offices available, and the office locations will likely not satisfy everyone’s interests.

Changes to the Hotel Policy and establishment of a Voluntary Transfer Policy are the direct result of the Workforce Satisfaction, Recruitment, and Retention Working Group and their recently completed survey. The results of the survey will be forthcoming, and, at that time, we will provide additional information on the status of each matter addressed.

Many of the original Working Groups have completed their reports, and we anticipate that we will have the opportunity to present recommendations for consideration for a sustained period of time. Also, new Working Groups have recently been formed, and we anticipate that, as your willingness to offer suggestions for consideration continues, additional Working Groups will be periodically formed to address them.

As you know, the working group process has identified other significant issues, such as FAM boarding procedures, which unfortunately do not lend themselves to simple solutions or immediate, unilateral decisions. However, please be assured that addressing these issues continues to be a high priority for us and that we are committed to the effective management of the working group process.

Please also continue to forward your issues, concerns, suggestions, and recommendations to the Working Group web site and to the anonymous web site that should become available, on or about September 1st, as we require your active participation in institutionalizing a process that allows you to be represented and positions us to work together toward resolving issues, where possible, and, where not, explaining the associated circumstances that exist in opposition to enactment.

For your review, a list of completed, active, and on deck Working Groups is available on the FAMS Intranet (link). We also owe you the results of our portion of the TSA 2006 Organizational Satisfaction Survey, and our Workforce Planning and Management Office is preparing that message for release.

In closing and in consideration of your past and present efforts and accomplishments, I remain absolutely confident that we have a dedicated workforce, which is unwaveringly committed to its mission, and so professional in its predisposition toward building an organization that will be well respected and sustainable over time, that we can entrust these changes, and more, to your care.
Thank you and, as you continue to take pride in and remember who you are, you provide all of us in the Federal Air Marshal Service the foundation from which to work to build an enduring, well respected federal law enforcement organization that will well serve your and the Nation’s interests.

Dana Brown
Assistant Administrator/Director
Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal Service
Transportation Security Administration

http://abcnews.go.com/images/WNT/fams_memo_policy_changes.pdf

[Petronas]

Note on Plane Forces Emergency Landing
Aug 28, 2006

A commuter airplane flying from Philadelphia to Houston was diverted to a Tennessee airport Monday after a threatening note was found on board, authorities said. None of the 56 passengers aboard US Airways Flight 3441 was injured, and no bomb was immediately found, authorities said. The regional jet landed without incident at the Tri-Cities Regional Airport in eastern Tennessee about 11:30 a.m., according to airport spokeswoman Melissa Thomas.

Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Amy von Walter said a threatening note was found on board, and FBI, TSA, canine bomb-sniffing teams and local law enforcement were investigating. Details about the note's contents were not released. A passenger found the note and alerted the crew, said Warren Wilkinson, a vice president for Indianapolis-based Republic Airways, which operates the express flight. "The crew contacted the cockpit," Wilkinson said. "The cockpit notified the company, and we chose to land at the closest acceptable airport." Passengers were taken to the airport terminal and were being interviewed by the FBI, von Walter said. Federal authorities released the plane, which the company used Monday to fly passengers on to Houston, a spokesman for US Airways said. It was unknown how many passengers continued on.

Also Monday, a plane carrying more than 140 people from Dallas to Chicago was diverted to the airport in Shreveport, La., after crew members reported smoke in the cockpit. Passengers boarded a different plane and continued on to Chicago, said airport spokesman Bill Cooksey. Authorities were investigating the source of the smoke.

And in Newfoundland, an Egypt Air flight carrying more than 300 passengers from Cairo to New York made an emergency landing after smoke was detected in the cockpit. No fire was found and no one was injured, said Kevin Aylward, CEO of Goose Bay Airport Corp.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2367749

[Petronas]

Profiling the Dead
September 1, 2006

One of the biggest concerns for prospective airline passengers is the screening process of flight cargo. According to reports, only a small percentage of cargo that is loaded onto planes is screened for explosives. And of the cargo that is in fact screened, rarely does it include large containers. The question needs to be asked: What if, in our laxity, these containers became a preferred method of attack by terrorists? And what if the contents of the containers being used for the attacks were once living and breathing?

Just like with any other religion, Muslim funerals have their own distinct customs and traditions. As stated in the ‘Muslim Funeral Guide for the residents of the Chicagoland,’ the funerals include: the preparation and washing of the deceased (Ghusl); the placing of a shroud (Kafan) over the body; transportation from the funeral home to the mosque for prayers; and transportation from the mosque back to the funeral home. It is the movement of the body to and from the mosque that is of concern.

According to the Funeral Home Administrator for a large facility based in Orlando, Florida, the prayers that take place at the mosque are fairly extensive. In addition, depending on how religious the family is, the body may, instead of being cleansed at the funeral home, be cleansed at the mosque. As well, in the Islamic tradition, bodies must be buried within 24 hours of death. If the body has to be transported to another state, or even another country, this certainly puts a constraint on the process.

Funeral homes will go out of their way to satisfy their customers, with respect to these needs and more. According to the Orlando facility, “It depends what the family desires… [If they] wish to have a cleansing ceremony, before the shipping out, so they know that the appropriate religious measures have been taken, that’s not a problem… These days, it doesn’t have to be one way or the other. Generally, a funeral home is flexible in trying to accommodate everybody’s wishes. I mean, that’s what we’re here for.”

In that flexibility, funeral home directors or administrators do not have to supervise what happens inside of the mosque. And given the sensitive nature of loved ones passing away, that is understandable. However, if the intent of those within the mosque is to inflict harm on others, this flexibility could be quite deadly.

Funeral homes take great pains to respect the remains of the dead. If the body inside the casket is altered in any way – even removed and replaced by something with similar weight – it is quite possible that this will go unnoticed by the funeral home. That means that, if an explosive were to be placed inside of the deceased’s body, no one would know.

Appalling as this may be, it is far from an unfounded notion. Just this past June, two U.S. soldiers were found dead in Iraq, their bodies rigged with explosives. Reports of the incident described the bodies as being “booby-trapped.”

As well, in April of 2005, Al-Iraqiya TV aired an interrogation of terrorist Adnan Elias who assisted in the kidnapping and beheading of an Iraqi police officer, whose body was later used as a bomb loaded with TNT. Elias illustrated the brutal death of the officer at the hands of a fellow terrorist: “Habib 'Izzat Hamu got the knife. He slaughtered him, and when he was dead, he opened his shirt buttons and cut open his stomach… He opened him up, took stuff out, and put TNT and explosives inside. Then, he sewed up his stomach with thick thread.” He then discussed how his ‘cell’ used the body to kill others. He stated, “We were told to take him in the car near the square in Tel A'far. We threw him there and placed his head back on his shoulders… 15 to 30 minutes later, they told his family to come and get their son. His father came with two policemen. They picked up the body and made no more than two steps – we were standing far away – Ahmad Sinjar pressed the button… The body exploded on them, and they died.”

The fear, with regard to Islamic funeral services, is that the bodies may be packed with explosives, as what was described in the aforementioned, and then used to blow holes in planes mid-air. Of course, this scenario cannot occur if the bodies are checked before being boarded onto the aircraft. Unfortunately, according to industry sources, inspection of caskets or shipping containers with the deceased inside – out of respect for the dead – does not take place.

During discussions with representatives from the Miami cargo station of ‘Delta Cares,’ it was learnt that large containers are not scrutinized, unless there is thought something suspect about the containers or unless the containers are bound for another country. And caskets or containers holding the deceased are never looked at period, including, as stated by one of the reps, those that are being loaded for international flights. The only things that are checked are the paperwork (death certificates, burial transit permits, etc.) necessary to ship the bodies.

“Would you want your mother’s casket being inspected?” the Delta rep asked. In a May 2005 Wall Street Journal article, entitled ‘Shipping News: How funeral directors earn free flights,’ Delta claimed that its company alone ships 50,000 corpses per year in the cargo holds of its passenger planes. According to the article, the perks funeral homes receive from this have been nicknamed the “frequent dier program.” One has to figure that at least some of these corpses are mothers of those that fit the profile of potential terrorists. In that case, the answer to the question is “yes.”

In the war on terrorism, measures that would normally be thought of as unconventional, if not entirely offensive, need to be taken to protect the security of the nation. The profiling of the deceased is but one of these measures – and certainly one that should garner more attention than the examination of passengers’ mascara or ChapStick. In the end, saving lives is all that matters.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24174

[Petronas]

Man flying to Yemen arrested after knife found
1:43 p.m. EDT, September 10, 2006

ROMULUS, Michigan (AP) -- A man with a one-way ticket to Yemen attempted to board a plane with a knife hidden in a book, authorities said. Mohammed Ghanem, 21, of Hamtramck, was jailed Saturday on $500,000 after being arraigned on a charge of possessing a weapon in the sterile area of an airport.

Ghanem was arrested Thursday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after Transportation Security Administration officers detected the knife "artfully concealed" in the book, airport spokesman Michael Conway said. Someone had carved out the inside of the book and placed the knife inside it, said Ghanem's attorney, Nabih Ayad. "He said he didn't know where the knife came from," Ayad told the Detroit Free Press. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Ghanem was born in Yemen, a republic bordering Saudi Arabia whose 18 million residents are primarily Muslim. He is now a legal permanent resident of the United States and was returning to Yemen to get married, Ayad said. Ghanem works as a busboy and lives in Hamtramck with family members, but he had a one-way ticket to Yemen, authorities said.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/10/airport.arrest.ap/index.html

[Petronas]

Mystery BlackBerry prompts airliner diversion
10:43 a.m. EDT, September 11, 2006

Federal authorities diverted a San Francisco-bound United Airlines jet to Dallas as a precautionary security measure on Monday after finding an unclaimed BlackBerry on board. Officials had also found and removed an unidentified backpack from the jet before it left Atlanta, said Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Yolanda Clark. She described the jet, United flight 351, as secure and said it was diverted to Dallas "out of an abundance of caution." "The aircraft is secure," Clark said. She said there was no indication that the hand-held computer was being used as an explosive device or trigger.

The flight was diverted on the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Authorities decided not to send military fighter aircraft to escort the jet, as is routine during an emergency, said Lt. Col. John Cornelio, a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command. The passengers were to be rescreened by security personnel, according to officials at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which monitors U.S. airspace.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/11/flight.diverted.ap/index.html

[Petronas]

So much for Albanian airport security.

Turkish Airlines plane hijacked, lands in Italy
October 03, 2006 11:37 AM EDT

ROME - A Turkish Airlines plane carrying more than 100 passengers was hijacked Tuesday to protest a planned visit of the pope to Turkey next month, airline officials said. The plane, which was hijacked in Greek airspace after taking off from Albania, later landed at Italy's Brindisi airport, and Italian aviation officials said the apparently unarmed hijackers were in negotiations with Italian authorities for the release of the passengers.

Turkish TV station NTV said the two Turkish hijackers were demanding the right to make a protest statement against the pope. The two Turks told authorities they were prepared to turn themselves in, said Candan Karlitekin, chairman of Turkish Airlines' board of directors. "The passengers are not under any threat. They will surrender, they declared that they will surrender the moment they hijacked the plane," Karlitekin said, adding that no one was hurt.

A spokesman for the Greek military's general staff told The Associated Press that four Greek fighter jets had been scrambled to shadow the plane after it issued a distress signal over Greek airspace. The plane's captain issued an alert and was contacted by Greek air traffic controllers at 5:55 p.m. (1455GMT) 15 miles (25 kilometers) north of Thessaloniki, Stravropoulos said. The captain told the Greek controllers: "I have two undesirable people who want to go to Italy to see the pope and give him a message," Stravropoulos said.

The plane, which had been en route to Istanbul from Tirana, then contacted Italian air traffic controllers and asked to land in Brindisi, according to Nicoletta Tomiselli, a spokeswoman for the Italian air traffic agency ENAV. She said the aircraft, which she said was carrying 113 people, was escorted to the ground by two Italian military planes. Ali Genc, a Turkish Airlines' spokesman, said there were 107 on board. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20061003/4521e040_3426_13350200610031836209331

[al-Canine]

Air passengers 'could be tagged'

Electronically tagging passengers at airports could help the fight against terrorism, scientists have said.
The prototype technology is to be tested at an airport in Hungary, and could, if successful, become a reality "in two years".

The work is being carried out at a new research centre, based at University College London, set up to find technological solutions to crime.

Other projects include scanners for explosives and dirty bomb radiation.

Dr Paul Brennan, an electrical engineer, is leading the tagging project, known as Optag.

He said: "The basic idea is that airports could be fitted with a network of combined panoramic cameras and RFID (radio frequency ID) tag readers, which would monitor the movements of people around the various terminal buildings."

The plan, he said, would be for each passenger to be issued with a tag at check-in.

He said: "In our system, the location can be detected to an accuracy of 1m, and video and tag data could be merged to give a powerful surveillance capability."

Civil liberties

The tags do not store any data, but emit a signal containing a unique ID which could be cross-referenced with passenger identification information. In the future, added Dr Brennan, this could incorporate biometric data.

The project still needs to overcome some hurdles, such as finding a way of ensuring the tags cannot be switched between passengers or removed without notification.

The issue of infringement of civil liberties will also be key.

But potentially, said Dr Brennan, the tags could aid security by allowing airports to track the movement patterns of passengers deemed to be suspicious and prevent them from entering restricted areas.

It could also aid airports by helping evacuation in case of a fire, rapidly locating children, and finding passengers who are late to arrive at the gate.

The "proof of concept" of the system is about to be tested at Debrecen airport in Hungary. If successful, claimed Dr Brennan, it could be available elsewhere within two years.

The new centre will also be investigating a range of other airport security tools.

Professor Robert Speller has been developing scanners to detect explosives and drugs. The devices could be used at airports or other ports of entry.

Scattered photons

The scanners work by firing an x-ray at an item and then detecting how light particles called photons are scattered.

Different materials, he said, produce unique patterns of photon scattering, and this can be used to identify whether an explosive or type of drug is present. The scanners, he said, could be incorporated into the machines being used by airports to scan bags.

He is also developing a prototype "Compton camera".

This portable device, he said, could be used if a suspected dirty bomb had been exploded. It is able to detect if any radiation is present, and if so, its precise location.

He said it would help the emergency services identify dangerous areas, and would aid the possible clear-up operation.

The UCL Centre for Security and Crime Science, which opens on Friday, works across many different areas in science and is investigating a number of security and crime issues.

Professor Gloria Laycock, director of the centre, said: "Security is a major issue in today's society and can take many forms.

"We've got rising crime across the developing world, and that has been linked to rising opportunities for crime. The most effective means of tackling this is by tackling those opportunities. Science and technology can help us to do this."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6044310.stm

[Petronas]

A journalist dressed in a Muslim burka was not required to reveal her face to Copenhagen airport security
23.10.2006

A reporter from daily newspaper B.T. dressed in a burka was able to pass through at Copenhagen's Kastrup Airport without being asked to reveal her face to security personnel. Burkas are an item of Muslim clothing worn by women and exposing only the hands and eyes of their wearers. B.T.'s female reporter was required only to pull down the outfit's veil past her nose when passing through the security checkpoint.

The reporter flew from Copenhagen to London Stansted airport, where she was required to fully reveal her face to security personnel there - both on the incoming and return flights.

Police acknowledged that the woman should have been checked more thoroughly, but said the incident will not lead to any procedural changes for airport security.

http://www.cphpost.dk/get/98623.html

[Petronas]

Tampa airport reopens after partial evacuation
Nov 1, 2006

Operations at Florida's Tampa International Airport returned to normal on Wednesday after it was partially evacuated when a suspicious item was spotted, an airport spokeswoman said. She said one concourse at the airport, used by JetBlue Airways Corp., AirTran Airways, Frontier Airlines Inc. and Continental Airlines, was shut down for a little over an hour before federal security officials gave the all-clear. "I'm counting up the number of flights that were impacted," the spokesman said, adding that the airport was fully operational again as of about 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT). The spokeswoman said she was unsure what exactly had triggered the security alert.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2621173

[Petronas]

British air plot targeted U.S. cities
Nov. 2, 2006 at 7:40AM

A foiled British terror plot to blow up 10 passenger aircraft with liquid bombs was meant to occur over U.S. cities, a senior FBI official says. Mark Mershon, head of the FBI's New York field office, made the observation at the Infosecurity 2006 conference in New York on Oct. 24. The conference was reported on this week by Government Security News. "The plan was bring them down over U.S. cities, not over the ocean," Mershon said, adding the plotters' goal was to maximize damage and loss of life.

On Aug. 10, British police and the MI5 domestic security service conducted raids in which 25 people were arrested and charged with conspiring to mix liquid bombs from common chemicals taken aboard in carry-on baggage on non-stop Britain-U.S. flights. U.S. intelligence officials had originally thought the plan was for the suicide bombers to strike while the aircraft were over the Atlantic Ocean, The New York Times said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20061102-071718-6485r.htm

[al-Canine]

How to Spot a Terrorist on the Fly

By Paul Ekman

The man in the cheap brown jacket stood slumped in line, staring at the ground. His hands were fidgety, reaching repeatedly into his inside jacket pocket, or patting it from the outside. A momentary look of anguish, just 1/15th of a second or so, occasionally flashed across his face -- the inner corners of his eyebrows would go up, so that his brows sloped down from the center of his forehead, his cheeks would rise, and the corners of his lips would pull down slightly. He was exhibiting what I call a micro-expression, a sign of an emotion being concealed.

The question was: What was he concealing? And why?

To the behavior-detection officers I was with at Boston's Logan International Airport, his combination of mannerisms -- the micro-expression, the slumped posture, the pocket-patting -- was unusual enough to raise a red flag. They called a uniformed state police officer, who asked the man the purpose of his travel. It turned out that he was on the way to the funeral of his brother, who had died unexpectedly. That was the reason for the bowed head. The frequent chest-patting was to reassure himself that he had his boarding pass. The micro-expression was an attempt to conceal his grief.

The man was not a terrorist, nor a malefactor of any kind, but just an innocent traveler carrying some extra emotional baggage that day. So why single him out for questioning because of a fleeting expression and a sad-sack posture?

Critics of the controversial new security program I was taking stock of -- known as SPOT, for Screening Passengers by Observational Techniques -- have said that it is an unnecessary invasion of privacy, based on an untested method of observation, that is unlikely to yield much in the way of red-handed terrorists set on blowing up a plane or flying it into a building, but would violate fliers' civil rights.

I disagree. I've participated in four decades' worth of research into deception and demeanor, and I know that researchers have amassed enough knowledge about how someone who is lying looks and behaves that it would be negligent not to use it in the search for terrorists. Along with luggage checks, radar screening, bomb-sniffing dogs and the rest of our security arsenal, observational techniques can help reduce risks -- and potentially prevent another deadly assault like the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

A lot has been said about the 9/11 hijackers' unusual behavior in the days before they boarded their ill-fated flights. Several of them were repeatedly questioned, but no one recognized their lies. An airport screener later said he had been suspicious of one because of his strange demeanor on the day of the attacks. But the screener had no training that would have given him the confidence to act on his suspicions.

The hijackers' lies -- to visa interviewers and airport check-in workers -- succeeded largely because airport personnel weren't taught how to spot liars. They had to rely on their hunches. The people who might have saved the lives of many Americans were needlessly handicapped.

Imagine if that screener had been taught to discern the signs of deception in a person's facial expressions, voice, body language and gestures. With such training, he could have been confident enough to report the hijacker's behavior. SPOT, which the Transportation Security Administration introduced this year at 14 U.S. airports, including Washington's Dulles International, is the first attempt at using observational techniques as part of our security approach, and it is promising. Preliminary findings show that the overwhelming number of those who are taken out of line and detained for further investigation were intending to commit or had committed some kind of wrongdoing: They were wanted criminals, drug smugglers, money smugglers, illegal immigrants -- and, yes, a few were suspected terrorists.

SPOT's officers, working in pairs, stand off to the side, scanning passengers at a security checkpoint for signs of any behaviors on the officers' checklist, such as repeated patting of the chest -- which might mean that a bomb is strapped too tightly under a person's jacket -- or a micro-expression.

The items on the SPOT checklist are culled from law enforcement experience and research on deception and demeanor. What about your face, voice and body betrays the fact that you're lying? I've been studying this question for nearly 40 years, ever since I began researching it in the 1970s with Maureen O'Sullivan of the University of San Francisco and, several years later, with Mark Frank of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

In our studies, we recorded interviews set up in such a way that we knew when a person was lying. Afterward, we replayed the videotapes over and over in slow motion to identify the expressions and behaviors that distinguish lying from truth-telling. We spent hours identifying the precise moment-to-moment movements of the facial muscles based on my Facial Action Coding System (FACS) -- a catalogue of every conceivable facial expression that I created and published in 1978 -- to get comprehensive evidence of the kinds of facial looks that accompany spoken lies. Once such expressions are identified, people can be quickly trained to recognize them as they occur.

We also looked at the behavioral signs that accompany the act of thinking up an answer on the spot (e.g., an increase in pauses) and signs of emotion in the face, voice or gesture that contradict the words being spoken ("The answer is definitely no" accompanied by just a slight nod of the head).

The facial expressions we identified allowed us to correctly determine who was lying 70 percent of the time; when the rest of demeanor is added, it pushes accuracy close to 100 percent.

Tools like this are indispensable to the future of airport security, and more are coming. Within the next year or two, maybe sooner, it will be possible to program surveillance cameras hooked to computers that spit out FACS data to identify anyone whose facial expressions are different from the previous two dozen people in line.

Someday, remote surveillance devices may identify anyone whose blood pressure and heart rate are much higher than those of the previous two dozen people. While this will provide an important new way of knowing that something is amiss, it does open a Pandora's box. Legislation to protect privacy and prevent misuse of such a technique should be enacted now.

Meanwhile, short-term research on several questions -- whether SPOT misses people whose behaviors are on its checklist; whether other behaviors should be included on the list; and whether additional training would increase observers' accuracy -- could help improve the program.

Civil libertarians have raised the expected concerns about using observational techniques at airports: that SPOT spots more than just terrorists; that minorities, who fear discrimination and might act more nervous than others, may be unfairly singled out; that most of the people identified are innocent.

But the day I spent at Logan confirmed for me that SPOT violates no one's civil rights. Few people were identified. Nearly always, the answers to initial questions made further investigation unnecessary. No record was made, and the passenger lost no time.

Observational techniques are not a substitute for all the other techniques we now use to catch would-be terrorists. But they add another layer to transportation security. They are now being used at fewer than one in 10 major U.S. airports. We need to use them everywhere.

Paul Ekman, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California at San Francisco, is a pro bono adviser to the Transportation Security Adminstration's SPOT program.

The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701478.html)

[Petronas]

Excellent post, al-Canine. Ahmed Ressam was caught, and Los Angeles International Airport was not blown up, only because a customs officer without any formal training thought Ressam "looked and acted suspicious" and acted on that hunch. El Al has used observational techniques for years, with signal success, given that the national airline of the Jewish state must be the number one target airline for Islamic terrorists.

[Petronas]

Not quite sure where this one fits, so I thought I might as well put it here.

Terror alert in South Pacific
Nov 14, 2006

A low level terror alert is in force in the South Pacific. The FBI is on the trail of a man with alleged links to one of the September 11 masterminds after he tried to set up a pilot training school on a remote island, bordering US territory. That is despite the island having no airport or telephones.

The isolated Kiribati islands are grappling with being catapulted into the world of terrorism. "It's absolutely gut wrenching frightening," says Fanning Island resident Chuck Corbett.

The man causing the alarm is Wolfgang Bohringer, who sailed into Kiribati's Fanning Island a year ago. On board, along with his Slovenian girlfriend, was a proposal to set up a resort and flight school on the island.

Kiribati President Anote Tong says there are serious communication problems on the island and Bohringer was going to help out. "We have an old airfield that needs redoing and part of the proposal is he would do it, he would provide air services," Tong says.

But for local residents like Corbett, who spent months with Bohringer, things did not add up. "One particular night he laid out seven passports on the table. I recall one being from Ireland, from the Bahamas, one from Grenada, India, the US, Germany and one other one," Corbett says. Then there was the cash and lots of it. "I would offer to go shopping for him," says Corbett. "He would always give me a $100 bill. Once it was seven $100 bills and they were always crisp and neat."

But the alarm bells really started ringing when Bohringer told islanders he was in contact with Mohammed Atta, the architect of September 11.

The pair mixed frequently as Bohringer had owned a flight school beside the airfield where the 9/11 hijackers trained. That information led Kiribati authorities to investigate.

"The check was carried out and we received information there was maybe a little more to the proposal than appeared to be," says Tong. The FBI thought so too. When Bohringer realised officials were on to him he sailed off, leaving his girlfriend behind. The joint terrorism task force has now joined the FBI investigation into Bohringer.

One agent ONE News spoke to confirmed that Bohringer is a person of interest and they are very keen to find out where he is. They want answers to why Bohringer would set up a flight school using DC3s on an island bordering US waters.

The Kiribati government is now calling for the US, New Zealand and Australia to help them with security. "I'm sure it may be part of a grand plan that even we cannot imagine. But we would never contribute to a programme that would... have the intent of violence," says Tong. For now, the FBI is continuing its search for the mysterious Wolfgang Bohringer and his cash laden yacht.

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/891692

[Petronas]

Jet Bomb Plot: Police Union Criticises German Airport Security
03:44 PM, November 21st 2006

... Konrad Freiberg, head of the German police union which campaigns for police to take over security work from lower-paid private guards, told a daily newspaper, the Neue Presse of Hanover, "Aviation security is the principal angle of attack for terrorists. Unfortunately we have got security gaps, beginning with the checks being done by private security companies at Frankfurt Airport. You could not with a clear conscience call that security at all." ...

http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_3692-Jet-Bomb-Plot-Police-Union-Criticises-German-Airport-Security.html

[al-Canine]

Hmmm, can't find a thread on the original incident noted here. Mods, feel free to move if there's a better place for this.

How the imams terrorized an airliner

Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated with a security probe by terrorists and were not merely engaged in prayers, according to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials.

Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.

"I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

"That would alarm me," said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. "They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane."

A pilot from another airline said: "That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry."

But the imams who were escorted off the flight in handcuffs say they were merely praying before the 6:30 p.m. flight on Nov. 20, and yesterday led a protest by prayer with other religious leaders at the airline's ticket counter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, called removing the imams an act of Islamophobia and compared it to racism against blacks.

"It's a shame that as an African-American and a Muslim I have the double whammy of having to worry about driving while black and flying while Muslim," Mr. Bray said.

The protesters also called on Congress to pass legislation to outlaw passenger profiling.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said the September 11 terrorist attacks "cannot be permitted to be used to justify racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim and Arab Americans."

"Understandably, the imams felt profiled, humiliated, and discriminated against by their treatment," she said.

According to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials, the imams displayed other suspicious behavior.

Three of the men asked for seat-belt extenders, although two flight attendants told police the men were not oversized. One flight attendant told police she "found this unsettling, as crew knew about the six [passengers] on board and where they were sitting." Rather than attach the extensions, the men placed the straps and buckles on the cabin floor, the flight attendant said.

The imams said they were not discussing politics and only spoke in English, but witnesses told law enforcement that the men spoke in Arabic and English, criticizing the war in Iraq and President Bush, and talking about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

The imams who claimed two first-class seats said their tickets were upgraded. The gate agent told police that when the imams asked to be upgraded, they were told no such seats were available. Nevertheless, the two men were seated in first class when removed.

A flight attendant said one of the men made two trips to the rear of the plane to talk to the imam during boarding, and again when the flight was delayed because of their behavior. Aviation officials, including air marshals and pilots, said these actions alone would not warrant a second look, but the combination is suspicious.

"That's like shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater. You just can't do that anymore," said Robert MacLean, a former air marshal.

"They should have been denied boarding and been investigated," Mr. MacLean said. "It looks like they are trying to create public sympathy or maybe setting someone up for a lawsuit."

The pilot with another airline who talked to The Washington Times on condition of anonymity, said he would have made the same call as the US Airways pilot.

"If any group of passengers is commingling in the terminal and didn't sit in their assigned seats or with each other, I would stop everything and investigate until they could provide me with a reason they did not sit in their assigned seats."

One of the passengers, Omar Shahin, told Newsweek the group did everything it could to avoid suspicion by wearing Western clothes, speaking English and booking seats so they were not together. He said they conducted prayers quietly and separately to avoid attention.

The imams had attended a conference sponsored by the North American Imam Federation in Minneapolis and were returning to Phoenix. Mr. Shahin, who is president of the federation, said on his Web site that none of the passengers made pro-Saddam or anti-American statements.

The pilot said the airlines are not "secretly prejudiced against any nationality, religion or culture," and that the only target of profiling is passenger behavior.

"There are certain behaviors that raise the bar, and not sitting in your assigned seat raises the bar substantially," the pilot said. "Especially since we know that this behavior has been evident in suspicious probes in the past."

"Someone at US Airways made a notably good decision," said a second pilot, who also does not work for US Airways.

A spokeswoman for US Airways declined to discuss the incident. Aviation security officials said thousands of Muslims fly every day and conduct prayers in airports in a quiet and private manner without creating incidents.

The Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061128-122902-7522r.htm)

[Petronas]

This is the right place for this article. I recently listened top a talk by Dr. Harvey Kushner, where he explained the superiority of behavioral profiling over mere racial profiling. By all accounts, it looks like under behavioral profiling these six richly merited to be kicked off the plane. They were:
1. looking for a law suit;
2. conducting a dry run for the benefit of future hijackers; or
3. terrorizing the crew and other passengers for fun (this is not far fetched, a few years ago there was a documented case where in a US mosque a Muslim student regaled those present with a story how he and a bunch of friends had done exactly the same, with the exhortation to other Muslims to emulate them).

[Petronas]

I hope there is surveillance of such rooms - they otherwise could make great staging areas for potential hijackers after passing security.

Muslims Seek Prayer Room at Airport
Dec 01 6:53 PM US/Eastern

Airport officials said Friday they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation at the request of imams concerned about the removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight last week. Steve Wareham, director of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said other airports have "meditation rooms" used for prayers or by passengers who simply need quiet time.

A group of Somali clerics met with airport officials Friday and said they would attract less attention if they had a private area for prayer. Devout Muslims pray five times daily, facing the holy city of Mecca. ...

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/01/D8LOC15O0.html

[Petronas]

United States (Country threat level - 3): A security breach occurred at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (KRDU/RDU) in North Carolina early on 19 December 2006 when a man scaled a perimeter fence and boarded a Boeing 737 passenger aircraft. A cleaning crew discovered the man onboard the aircraft at approximately 0330 local time and alerted authorities, who arrested him. The aircraft -- which was scheduled to depart for Cincinnati, Ohio, at 0600 local time -- belongs to Delta Airlines. Authorities conducted a secondary security check of the aircraft, but nothing suspicious was found. The suspect arrested in connection with the security breach is being arraigned on trespassing and drug charges, as well as for illegally accessing an aircraft. According to airport authorities, the man did not represent a security threat.

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

[Petronas]

Do the transit authorities in Grand Rapids, MI know about this?
http://wincoast.com/forum/showpost.php?p=904365&postcount=341

Police killer suspect fled Britain in a veil
December 20, 2006

A man who was being hunted for the murder of a policewoman is understood to have escaped from Britain by disguising himself as a veiled Muslim woman. Mustaf Jama, a prime suspect in the fatal shooting of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, assumed his sister’s identity — wearing the niqab and using her passport — to evade supposedly stringent checks at Heathrow, according to police sources.

The use of the niqab, which leaves only a narrow slit for the eyes, highlights flaws in British airport security. At the time, Jama was Britain’s most wanted man, while Heathrow was on a heightened state of alert after the 7/7 terrorist atrocities in London five months previously.

The Times has learnt that British immigration officers rarely carry out a visual check to match a passport photograph with a departing female passenger’s veiled face.

Details of Jama’s disguise emerged yesterday as his younger brother, Yusuf, awaited a life sentence for the murder of the police officer, who died during an armed robbery at a Bradford travel agency in November last year.

Detectives believe that Jama, 26, was allowed to board an international flight from Heathrow because no attempt was made to uncover his face. While British baggage security is among the strictest in the world, the system of identity checks is considered less rigorous than in countries such as France.

At the time of his escape, between Christmas Day last year and New Year’s Day, the 26-year-old Somali national, who had 21 criminal convictions, was the most wanted man in Britain. His photograph had been circulated to every police force, port and airport in the country after the bungled robbery in which PC Beshenivsky died and her colleague, PC Teresa Milburn, was seriously wounded.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, called for an urgent inquiry into the security breach. “The idea that in any circumstan-ces you could be let through passport control wearing a veil is barely credible,” he said. “Doing so when an all-persons bulletin for murder has been issued demonstrates that our borders are not just porous — they are non-existent.”

A Home Office spokesman confirmed yesterday that although immigration control staff had the power to ask people to remove the veil to prove their identity, it is not an automatic policy. The only visual checks at an airport that should always be made in relation to departing pasengers are at check-in and at the boarding gate. In each case, the task is the responsibility of the relevant airline. A BAA Heathrow spokesman said yesterday:

“Immigration control staff always do a visual check on people coming into the country but only random checks are made with outgoing passengers.”

The Times understands that police investigating the Beshenivsky murder received specific intelligence about Jama’s veiled escape from what is regarded as a very reliable source. Jama — who made £600 from the robbery — is thought to be under armed protection in a semi-lawless region of Somalia where his family wields considerable influence.

The Times can also reveal that Jama’s father, who was once a Somali MP, is a cousin of Mohamed Siad Barre, the country’s former President who seized power in a 1969 military coup and led a brutal dictatorship until he was toppled in 1991. The wanted man’s uncle is the country’s former Foreign Minister.

Approaches have been made by Britain to the transitional Government in Somalia, which has offered its co-operation in any attempt to detain and extradite Jama but is understood to have minimal influence in the region where he is hiding.

The news adds to the controversy over the wearing of the veil in Britain. The debate was sparked in October when Jack Straw revealed that he asked Muslim women to remove the niqab before meetings in his Blackburn constituency. Tony Blair later described the veil as “a mark of separation”.

In October The Times revealed that a male suspect in a major anti-terrorist investigation evaded capture in Britain for several days by dressing in a burka. He was eventually arrested and is awaiting trial.

The full-face veil has regularly been used as a disguise in Iraq and Afghanistan by Islamist fighters, including several suicide bombers and at least one senior al-Qaeda leader.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2512361,00.html

[Petronas]

French film raises fresh fears over airport safety
Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:22 AM ET

A French television reporter managed to smuggle explosive material and knives onto American and French passenger planes apparently revealing serious flaws in security at French airports. Appearing in a documentary made for state television due to be aired on Friday, the reporter has raised fresh questions about French air safety after accusations last month that it was too easy to gain access to aircraft at Paris' main airport.

Reporter Laurent Richard, aided by security expert Christophe Naudin, used hidden cameras to show themselves carrying "de-activated" Semtex explosive and a detonator in their hand luggage aboard an Air France flight to Nice. On another occasion, the pair carried two box cutters aboard a Delta airlines flight from Paris to New York, with security staff not looking at their screens as the weapons passed through the x-ray machines. Box cutters were used by the hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities.

The film also shows the duo packing a Semtex-like substance in their luggage, which was subsequently put into the hold of a domestic French flight despite x-ray checks on the suitcase. Richard said the substance could not have exploded but had the same chemical characteristics of the plastic explosive Semtex, and should, in theory, have been detected.

Air France and French airport authorities declined immediate comment ahead of Friday's screening.

Richard is also filmed driving a truck into a supposedly secure area of Paris's main Roissy airport, passing three check points by simply showing his driving license and finishing up just a few meters (feet) from a parked aircraft. All the security breaches were made over the past month.

In November, a union representing Paris airport workers said a film apparently showing a block of clay being smuggled on to an aircraft demonstrated how easy it would be for terrorists to get plastic explosives onto a plane. Airport security, which underwent a fundamental transformation after September 11, 2001, returned to the media spotlight in August when British police said they had foiled a plot to blow up aircraft flying to the United States.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/19/news/france.php?page=2

[Petronas]

Security Alert: Airport Screener Jacket Found at Local Store
12/22/2006 12:10:16 AM

Disturbing new evidence reveals a threat to our homeland security is worse than originally thought. The News Four WOAI Trouble Shooters first uncovered records last May showing 1400 airport security badges and uniforms are missing from airports here and across the country. Now, new information obtained by Trouble Shooter Brian Collister shows a dramatic increase in the total number. But that's not all the Trouble Shooters found.

A WOAI viewer contacted the Trouble Shooters because he found a TSA screener's jacket for sale at a local thrift store. Security experts fear TSA uniforms could help terrorists pull off an attack. Mike Martinez, who found the jacket, said he felt compelled to pull it off the rack. He told News 4 his main concern was for the safety and security of fellow Americans after what happened on 9-11. The thrift store sale is also a violation of the Transportation Security Administration's policy, which requires "for reasons of security" any discarded uniform must have all distinctive markings removed.

We asked Martinez if he had contacted the TSA. "Yes I did," Martinez told News 4 during an on-camera interview. "When I first got the jacket, I looked in the phone book and I tried to contact somebody over at TSA. And I told them about the jacket, and they just told me it was a discarded uniform, and that was it. I didn't feel comfortable, but I didn't throw it away or give it away." Martinez said the TSA told him they didn't want it back. So, Martinez brought the jacket to the Trouble Shooters after seeing our investigation last May.

Now, we've received new records revealing the number of missing badges and uniforms has more than doubled and is now at 3719.

After our initial investigation, a source within TSA told us agency officials sent out an email urgently asking every airport security director to immediately report any missing items they have not already reported to TSA headquarters.

Records the Trouble Shooters obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show the number of missing items from San Antonio and Texas airports remains about the same, except for a dramatic increase in the number of badges missing at Bush Airport in Houston. Bush originally reported missing 18 items, but now reports missing 77.

It is far from being the airport that's lost the most items, though. That title belongs to Los Angeles Airport (LAX), which is now reporting missing 636 uniforms, and O'Hare in Chicago tops the missing badges list with 189. ...

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=ffeab148-93fc-4e3a-8225-7f573fbfc51d

[Petronas]

Airport security probe reveals gaps
Originally posted on December 17, 2006

TESTING THE BOUNDARIES
A look at The News-Press investigation of perimeter security at the state’s three busiest airports along with Southwest Florida International:

WHAT WE DID

A reporter walked along the perimeter, observing the condition of the fence and gates, police presence, ease of access and police response time. The time spent in the perimeter area was recorded. Unless interrupted by police, the investigation was concluded after one hour.


SW FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Test date: Nov. 29
Started: 9 a.m.
Finished: 10:12 a.m.
Elapsed time*: 1 hour, 12 minutes
Result: Never confronted by authorities
Observations: Never saw police in the area. Fence 6 feet high topped by three strands of barbed wire. Some small holes along fence in densely wooded area; new fence along tarmac on old terminal site. Vehicle access blocked to air fire and rescue and control tower area, but foot access unrestricted, allowing intruder to get within roughly 20 feet of the tower.


MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT:

Test date: Nov. 30
Started: 11:44 a.m.
Finished: 11:55 a.m.
Elapsed time*: 11 minutes
Result: Miami-Dade police questioned reporter and photographer, conducted criminal background checks and ordered reporter and photographer off property.
Observations: 8-foot fence backed in most areas by guardrails and
concrete barriers preventing intruders from gaining access by smashing vehicles through fence. Saw four U.S. Customs and Border Protection patrol cars along with a Miami-Dade utility vehicle along perimeter road before being confronted by police.

NAPLES MUNICIPLE AIRPORT

Test date: Tuesday
Started: 10:05 a.m.
Finished: 11:34 a.m.
Elapsed time*: 1 hour
Result: Never confronted
by authorities.
Observations: Mostly new fence with 20-foot section badly bowed and pulled from post in south-central area of perimeter along work site and near terminal. Observed by man in control tower. Saw three airport operations vehicles on perimeter road. Several gates held closed by chain and padlock.

ORLANDO INTERNATIONAL

Test date: Dec. 5
Started: 2:52 p.m.
Finished: 4:36 p.m.
Elapsed time*: 1 hour, 8 minutes Result: Never confronted by
authorities
Observations: Saw one police cruiser, none along perimeter roads. Fence 6 feet high topped by three strands of barbed wire in most sections. Large hole in fence near heavily used taxiway, offering quick access to aircraft. Many gates locked with chains. Loose barbed wire and crumpled fence in some sections. Large holes apparently dug by animals at bottom of some sections.

TAMPA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Test date: Dec. 1
Started: 12:45 p.m.
Finished: 1:45 p.m.
Elapsed time*: 1 hour
Result: Never confronted
by authorities
Observations: Saw one police cruiser along inside of perimeter. Fence 6 feet high, rusty and crumpled, topped by loose strands of barbed wire in some sections. Some access gates held closed only with rusty chain and padlock. Saw large hole at bottom of fence in one area; bottom of fence easily pulled up so that an intruder could squeeze through in other areas.


PERIMITER BREACHES

A sampling of perimeter security breaches this year at U.S. airports:

Oct. 31: Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. A vehicle carrying three men fleeing from police smashes through a perimeter fence on the northeast side of the air operations area. The men abandon the vehicle and run across the airfield before being arrested near a terminal.

Sept. 11: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta. A 53-year-old homeless man walks along the perimeter of the airport and through an open gate into an area offering access to airplanes and fuel tanks. He is apprehended without incident.

Aug. 8: Southwest Florida International Airport, Fort Myers. Jack Brems, 34, of San Carlos Park, smashes his car through a steel security gate, racing onto a runway as one jetliner takes off and beneath the wing of another readying for takeoff. The high-speed chase lasts seven minutes before authorities arrest Brems.

June 14: Dulles International Airport, Dulles, Va. Federal agents arrest 55 illegal immigrants working in a secure construction area.

May 31: Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Local TV crew reports that construction vehicles speed through an open gate without being stopped by lone company employee at the gate.

May: Indianapolis International Airport. An airline ground crewman tells a local TV station that his co-workers breach security every day. His claims are backed by a videotape showing him boarding two empty planes without being questioned.

March 18: Tulsa International Airport, Oklahoma. A man is arrested after driving into an airport concourse without being screened, apparently by driving down an exit lane.

March 6: Midway International Airport, Chicago. An inebriated 22-year-old man slips though an open gate into a secure area. A Southwest Airlines pilot calls the control tower after seeing the man standing between two runways. Six minutes later, police arrest the man.

Jan. 10: Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. A local TV station discovers that security gates around the air traffic control transmitter have been left open and unguarded for weeks.


AIRPORT BIOS

Miami International Airport
Operator: Miami-Dade County Aviation Department
Acreage: 3,230
Runways: 4
Passengers: 31 million
Gates: 130
Carriers: 97


Naples Municipal Airport
Operator: Naples Airport Authority
Acreage: 732
Runways: 2
Passengers: 60,000
Gates: 3
Carriers: 2

Orlando International Airport
Operator: Greater Orlando Aviation Authority
Acreage: 13,297
Runways: 4
Passengers: 34.7 million
Gates: 96
Carriers: 58


Southwest Florida International Airport
Operator: Lee County Port Authority
Acreage: 3,431
Runways: 1
Passengers: 7.5 million
Gates: 28
Carriers: 19


Tampa International Airport
Operator: Hillsborough County Aviation Authority
Acreage: 3,300
Runways: 3
Passengers: 19 million
Gates: 59
Carriers: 21


In the shadow of the control tower, the man stands hands on hips in a crisp white shirt watching from behind aviator sunglasses as the intruder scribbles in a notebook and glances nervously over his shoulder. Signs on the fence guarding the tower at Southwest Florida International Airport warn: VISITORS ENTERING THIS FACILITY CONSENT TO INSPECTIONS FOR WEAPONS AND EXPLOSIVES.

The intruder is close enough to the tower’s darkened windows to hit the glass with a stone, or some other object, if his aim is true. When he peers again over his shoulder at the airport’s fire and rescue station, the man in the sunglasses is gone. The intruder is harmless — a reporter from The News-Press. But how could anyone at Southwest Florida International have known?

For more than an hour, the reporter and a photographer walked alongside a 6-foot chain-link fence on the airport’s northern perimeter. Lee County Port Authority police are responsible for patrolling the area, but no officers approached. No squad cars cruised by along the perimeter road, the desolate tarmac where the old airport terminal once stood, or an adjacent cargo road.

An hour on the perimeters of two of the state’s busiest airports, Orlando and Tampa, along with Naples Municipal Airport, produced the same results. Police were rarely seen and never confronted the journalists.

Of five airport perimeters investigated by The News-Press, only at Miami International did authorities respond. Eleven minutes after a reporter and photographer began walking along an 8-foot fence on the airport’s west side, Miami-Dade police arrived in three cruisers. Officers demanded identification, ran background checks, then ordered the journalists off the property.

The contrast between the response and conditions at Miami and the other four airports was stark. No attempts were made to slip inside perimeters — The News-Press’ ethics guidelines do not allow reporters to break the law — but the opportunities were plentiful.

Holes large enough for a person to squeeze through were found in perimeter fences. At Orlando, such a gap was found within 20 feet of a heavily used taxiway. Some sections of fence were rusty and crumpling. Strands of barbed wire topping the barriers were loose or fallen. Gates were held closed in some places only by a rusty chain and padlock.

The findings illustrate what some former federal investigators and security researchers call a deep flaw in the nation’s airport security system. They charge that as holiday travelers inside airports jump through a maddening array of security hoops — from packing shampoos in plastic baggies to having their bodies X-rayed by federal screeners — the tarmacs, runways and taxiways beyond the terminals are exposed to the kind of intruders 9/11 taught travelers to fear.

“Perimeter security? What perimeter security?” said Steve Elson, a retired Navy SEAL who in the 1990s headed a crack team of agents charged with testing airport security for the Federal Aviation Administration. “Perimeter security is a joke. No one’s paying any attention to it,” he said, “and no one’s going to until there’s another 9/11 and a lot of people are killed.”

The problem was highlighted here Aug. 8 when Jack Brems, 34, of San Carlos Park, sped through a steel security gate at Southwest Florida International and led police on a wild seven-minute chase on an airport runway. He is awaiting federal trial in the case. The gate where Brems broke through has since been removed, replaced by a fence and fronted by two 4,800-pound concrete barriers.

“We’ve taken additional measures that I can’t comment on,” said Maj. Richard Silverthorn, assistant chief of security for the Lee County Port Authority police department. Still, he admitted: “There are laws of physics, and I can’t tell you that no one can ever drive a car through a fence here.”

Breaches such as the one at Southwest Florida aren’t uncommon. Three men being chased by police crashed a vehicle through a perimeter fence Oct. 31 at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. On Sept. 11, five years after the terrorist attacks, a homeless man strolled through an open gate at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport into an area allowing access to planes and fuel tanks. In both cases, police arrested the suspects without incident.

“There are many more cases that that you never hear about,” said Robert Sproc, vice president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, one of two pilots groups that gave perimeter security low marks in recent airport security report cards. “People who don’t even know what they are doing are getting in. It’s alarming.”

Airport federal security directors — hired by the Transportation Security Administration to oversee security at the nation’s 450 commercial airports — say tests such as those conducted by The News-Press don’t show how quickly authorities would react if an intruder penetrated the perimeter.

“If you went inside that fence, I think you might have been very unpleasantly surprised,” said Dario Compain, the federal security director at Tampa, Sarasota-Bradenton and St. Petersburg airports.

But people such as Elson and others who have studied aviation security say detecting people inside the perimeter can be difficult, particularly in remote, poorly lit areas — which frequently abound at large commercial airports stretching over more than 3,000 acres.

“It’s a severe problem,” said Bogdan Dzakovic, a federal whistleblower and former FAA security investigator who has charged that he and his agents warned federal officials about aviation’s vulnerability to breaches and hijackings long before 9/11. “There is a lot of area to cover. And it’s a low priority in the minds of a lot of people.”

Federal security directors insist that’s not so. “Obviously, it’s very important that the perimeter of any airport be secure,” said Lee Kair, security director at Orlando International Airport. “We take that very seriously. It’s absolutely a high priority.” Holes found in a fence alongside a taxiway at the airport will be repaired, Kair vowed. “That’s a concern for us, and we’ll take care of it,” he said.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061217/NEWS01/61217001/1002&template=printart

[Petronas]

Russian Jet Forced to Land After Threat
December 28, 2006 7:51 AM EST

A Russian Aeroflot airliner made an unscheduled landing at Prague's international airport on Thursday after an apparent hijacking attempt, and a passenger was detained, police said. The Airbus A320 flying from Moscow to Geneva, landed at Ruzyne airport shortly before 11 a.m., airport spokeswoman Pavlina Hajkova said.

Police spokesman Pavel Hantak said that the alleged hijacker was "pacified on board the plane" and the man, a Russian citizen, was taken into custody by Czech police. Pantak said the man been threatening the crew of the plane but did not elaborate. Deputy director of Aeroflot, Lev Koshlyakov, told Rossiya television, "One of the passengers said he had an explosive device." Hantak said it was not immediately clear when the plane could resume its flight to Switzerland.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20061228/45934f50_3ca6_1552620061228-235049380

[Petronas]

Body of teen in jet wheel well raises security concerns at LAX
Published 2:07 am PST Tuesday, January 30, 2007

The discovery of a stowaway who died in the wheel well of a British Airways jet has raised questions about how the young man slipped through airport security and got onto the plane. Investigators were trying to determine where the boy, who was carrying identification and letters suggesting he was a 17-year-old South African, gained access to the jetliner, officials said Monday. His body was found over the weekend. The victim's name was not released. Authorities were working with the South African Consulate to check the documents' authenticity and locate possible family members. An autopsy was scheduled Tuesday, said county coroner's Capt. Ed Winter.

The death raises concerns about possible holes in air security, experts said. "The question is how did he get there? If he could be there himself, why not (with) a 150-pound bomb?" asked Brian Jenkins, a terrorism and homeland security expert at Rand Corp., noting that Heathrow's security is extremely tight. Jenkins also questioned why, if the teen had gotten aboard a few days ago, security inspections hadn't found him sooner.

The pilot found the body Sunday afternoon in the front wheel well of the 747-400 during a routine inspection at Los Angeles International Airport shortly before the plane was to return to London. The well compartment is enclosed but not pressurized or heated. British Airways Flight 283 had arrived from London Heathrow Airport on Sunday. Before that, it had made trips to Hong Kong; Singapore; Cape Town, South Africa; and Vancouver, said Alan Proud, a spokesman for the airline. The FBI was trying to determine where the youth boarded. The flight was last in Cape Town on Jan. 22, Proud said.

On Jan. 12, the body of a young African man was discovered in the wheel well of a Delta plane that landed in Atlanta from Dakar, Senegal. Authorities determined the man hid in the plane in Senegal and was suffocated by the landing gear. In 2000, a man lived through a freezing Air France Boeing 747 flight from Papeete, French Polynesia, to Los Angeles. His temperature dropped 79 degrees.

http://www.sacbee.com/114/v-print/story/115637.html

[Petronas]

Passengers subdue armed hijacker
February 15, 2007

A man armed with two pistols hijacked an Air Mauritania flight Thursday but was subdued by two passengers, a Spanish official said. The plane landed safely in the Canary Islands and no one was hurt, the official said.

The senior Spanish government source said a man had been trying to commandeer the Boeing 737 to Paris. He was arrested by the civil guard after the jet landed at Gando Airport, the source told CNN. Jose Segura, the central government's chief representative in the Canaries, told Ser, a Spanish radio station, that the plane was carrying 71 passengers and eight crew members.

Reports differed on the hijacker's nationality, with one senior Spanish government source saying he is Moroccan and Segura describing him as Mauritanian. Abass Bass, a representative of the Mauritanian Embassy in Washington, described the incident as a "tentative hijacking."

"The information we had from Mauritania is that the passengers fought back and they took the hijacker and now everything is OK," Bass told CNN.

Bass said the flight had been scheduled to be an interior one, from the capital city of Nouakchott to Nouadhibou, in northern Mauritania, near Morocco.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/15/hijack.plane/index.html

[Petronas]

Fast-thinking pilot fools hijacker
Updated: 1 hour, 38 minutes ago

A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled a gunman who had hijacked a jetliner flying from Africa to the Canary Islands, braking hard upon landing then quickly accelerating to knock the man down so travelers could pounce on him, Spanish officials said Friday.

The Air Mauritania Boeing 737 carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight was hijacked by a lone gunman brandishing two pistols Thursday evening shortly after it took off from Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, for Gran Canaria, one of Spain's Canary Islands, with a planned stopover in Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania.

The hijacking alarmed Spanish officials because a trial of 29 people accused in the Madrid terrorist bombings of 2004 had begun the same day in Madrid. But the man's motives were not terrorism, rather he wanted the plane to fly to France so he could request political asylum, said Mohamed Ould Mohamed Cheikh, Mauritania's top police official.

"We were afraid. We thought it was people from al-Qaida or the Algerian GSPC who were going to cut our throats," said Aicha Mint Sidi, a 45-year-old woman who was on the plane. The GSPC is a Muslim extremist group. "I trembled during and after the hijacking. I thought the plane was going to blow up any minute, either in mid-air or on landing," said another passenger, Dahi Ould Ali, 52. Both spoke after returning to Nouakchott.

The hijacker has been identified as Mohamed Abderraman, a 32-year-old Mauritanian, said an official with the Spanish Interior Ministry office on Tenerife, another of the islands in the Atlantic archipelago. He spoke under ground rules barring publication of his name. Mauritania has said the hijacker was a Moroccan from the Western Sahara.

The hijacker ordered the pilot to fly to France, but the crew told him there was not enough fuel. And Morocco denied a request to land in the city of Djala in the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, so the pilot headed for Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, the original destination.

Along the way, speaking to the hijacker, the pilot realized the man did not speak French. So he used the plane's public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump him, the Spanish official said. The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.

It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7 mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said. Around 20 people were slightly injured when the plane braked suddenly, the official said.

The hijacker was arrested by Spanish police who boarded the plane after it landed at Gando airport, outside Las Palmas. Air Mauritania identified the heroic pilot as Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine, a 20-year-veteran of the company.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17183946/

[Petronas]

Security chief fears airport staff infiltration
Thursday February 15, 2007

The terrorist threat against British airline passengers is evolving constantly and could involve inside help from airport employees, a senior government official has warned. Restrictions on hand luggage are likely to remain in place after the disruption last year of an alleged plot to blow up US-bound aircraft with liquid explosives. John Parkinson, the Department for Transport's head of aviation security, said security experts feared that a future terrorist attempt to target planes "would have the components available airside with the help of people who work there". He added: "The threat remains very serious and it is likely to endure for the foreseeable future. We continue to face very real challenges, but we remain determined to meet them."

A spokesman for BAA, owner of Heathrow airport, said airport employees posed no greater threat than passengers and were subjected to the same security checks, including a ban on carrying large amounts of liquids into terminals. "All airport staff have to go through security checks as well. Anything passengers go through, all airport staff have to go through," the spokesman said.

Prospective airport employees, including staff at retail outlets, also require a criminal records and counter-terrorism check before they are hired. The enhanced security checks were implemented after the security scare last summer brought Heathrow to a near-standstill and forced the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights.

Speaking at a transport security conference in London yesterday, Mr Parkinson said hand luggage restrictions which limit UK passengers to one bag and a small amount of liquids would remain in place until airport owners submitted proposals for more effective security measures, including new screening machines.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2013203,00.html

[Petronas]

TSA official: No danger from guns on planes
March 8, 2007

Passengers on a commercial flight from Florida to Puerto Rico were in little danger despite more than a dozen guns being on board, because at least two federal air marshals were also on the plane, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman said Thursday. TSA spokesman Christopher White declined to address the security breach or whether the marshals knew that guns were there. "I cannot comment on the operational details of this ongoing, long-term federal law enforcement investigation," White said.

Two baggage handlers used their employee uniforms and airport identification cards to enter restricted areas, bypass screeners with a bag containing the guns and drugs and board the commercial Delta Air Lines flight Monday, according to court documents. An anonymous tip led to the investigation, said Carlos Baixauli of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Thomas Anthony Munoz, 22, was arrested in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when he got off the plane. Inside a duffel bag he was carrying, authorities found 13 handguns, an assault rifle and eight bags of marijuana, Baixauli said. Zabdiel J. Santiago Balaguer, 22, who had been questioned by security screeners on Monday but released after no guns or drugs were found, was arrested late Tuesday. Both were charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana and possessing firearms during a drug trafficking offense, court documents said.

The court documents say Balaguer was a middle man who had delivered guns and drugs to Puerto Rico and offered to pay Munoz as much as $5,000 to make that delivery, court documents assert. A contact in Puerto Rico had wired more than $1,800 to Balaguer last week, which was used to buy the guns and drugs, according to a federal agent's affidavit. Balaguer remained in custody Thursday in Orange County. Public defender Stephen Langs said he planned to plead not guilty. "We'll see what the government thinks it has," said Langs, who declined to further discuss the case.

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070308/NEWS01/703080423/1001/opinion

[Petronas]

Device found in body cavity; flight diverted
POSTED: 8:19 a.m. EST, March 7, 2007

An Iraqi immigrant with a suspicious device lodged in a body cavity was detained Tuesday at Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said. A jetliner bound for Philadelphia, meanwhile, was diverted to Las Vegas because the man's luggage was aboard. Officials said the device and the luggage were cleared by bomb squads in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. "There never was a threat," said Larry Fetters, a security director for the federal Transportation Security Administration.

Fadhel Al-Maliki, 35, was held for a mental evaluation and for a possible immigration violation, federal officials said. Al-Maliki, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, is a permanent legal resident who came to the U.S. in 1994. He had flown to Los Angeles from Philadelphia on Monday and was booked for a return flight early Tuesday. He triggered an alert during a security screening, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

"He initially said (the device) was therapeutic," she said. The device had a wire and what may have been a magnet concealed in his rectum, federal officials said. It did not contain any explosives. Al-Maliki said he had flown to Los Angeles for a visit, Eimiller said.

No takeoffs or landings were affected at the LA airport. But a US Airways jet en route to Philadelphia was diverted because Al-Maliki's checked luggage already had been screened and put aboard. Flight 1422, carrying 143 passengers and six crew, landed at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas about 8:30 a.m. The plane was searched and later cleared to continue on to Philadelphia, an airport spokesman said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/07/plane.diverted.ap/index.html

[Petronas]

American Airlines Flight 62: A Terrorist Probe?
13 Feb 2007
By Annie Jacobsen

The following is an email I received detailing a “serious probe” on board American Airlines flight 62 traveling from Paris to Miami. The information comes to me second-hand — from a trusted source in the field. American Airlines spokesman John Hotard confirmed the incident on flight 62 with me, stating “there was a disturbance on board, it was handled by crew.” I asked Mr. Hotard the status of the men who were detained by FBI. Hotard told me “for security reasons, I can’t comment further.”

Here it is, unedited:
“This is not meant to scare, but it probably will. Consider yourself informed and warned that the threat is real. This crew reported that they were not prepared that something of this nature could be happening to them.

Flt 62, Paris to MIA [Miami], a few weeks ago. 2 maybe 4 mid-eastern types causing minor disturbance from the get-go. Nothing that the FAs [flight attendants] couldn’t deal with, but, in hindsight, they seemed to be pushing the envelope. Cross-cabin activity, hanging out in the forward galley, complaining about everything, etc. Mid-Atlantic, the FO [First Officer, or Co-Pilot] called to return to the cockpit after his crew-rest break. One of the perps [perpetrators] was in the forward galley, was instructed by a FA to go aft, but didn’t. As the cockpit door opened, another perp suddenly appeared from around the galley, dropped his shoulder into FO while the first one got in the way of the FO’s attempt to block the other…here I’m not certain…so….wait for the movie.

FO (one of our first FFDO’s [Federal Flight Deck Officers*]) was about to pull his flashlight to use as a weapon in a counter attack, but thought better of it not knowing how many more perps he might have to fight, called “lockdown” to the FB [secondary “B” First Officer], inside the cockpit, who slammed the door. As soon as the perps heard the word lockdown, they retreated to their seats.

I’m not doing justice to the story, but, if not an attempt on the cockpit, this was a serious probe.

Crew considered divert, but since the threat diminished and seemed to be contained, they pressed on towards MIA. Flight was met in MIA by FBI, FAMS [Federal Air Marshal Service] (none aboard, by the way), AA [American Airlines] Security suits, etc. During the de-brief, which lasted several hours, the FAMs told the pilots that they would have “dropped” both of the perps with the first shove near the cockpit door. Perps claimed to not understand English, were detained for 4 days and deported, back to Paris, when they are free to attend Sunday school, tell their buddies of their Adventure and plan their next move.

Enjoying the story so far? It’s good we can’t carry guns on Int’l [International] trips, eh?

Upsetting is that we all have to learn of this, by happenstance. Why didn’t you and your last crew know of this? We took a delay yesterday while this FB detailed the entire event to my crew. Believe me, there were no disbelievers that the terrorist threat is real in my crew by the time we boarded.

I’m more than upset that this is still a secret! The FB is a man I’ve flown with often, trust completely and attended FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer) training with a year ago January. I hope I’ve presented his story accurately, but am certain that the basic details are very close.On a separate note, American Airlines flight 63, also traveling from Paris to Miami, was the subject of a thwarted terrorist attack in December of 2001 when “shoe bomber” Richard Reid tried to bring down the aircraft by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes. Reid was later found guilty of terrorism charges in federal court in Massachusetts and sentenced to life in prison.

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* Armed Federal Flight Deck Officers are not allowed to carry their guns while flying international routes.

http://www.theaviationnation.com/2007/02/13/american-airlines-flight-62-terror-probe/

[Petronas]

Airport security targets the inside threat
March 13, 2007

The Transportation Security Administration carried out surprise inspections on workers at five airports in Florida and Puerto Rico on Monday, one week after a baggage handler in Orlando allegedly used his airport credentials to smuggle more than a dozen firearms into a commercial jetliner. Some 160 TSA officers, backed by Federal Air Marshals and local police, searched airplanes for contraband, shined flashlights in airport vehicles and patted down contractor employees involved in airport security. The five airports inspected were in Tampa, Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The airport crackdown will continue through the week, spreading to other regions in the country as TSA increases random, unannounced searches targeting those who could misuse their access within the system. "We realize the insider threat is a real threat, and we have to address it," said TSA spokesman Christopher White.

In Tampa's airport, the 28th busiest in North America, there are 8,000 full- and part-time employees. Some 6,300 of them have credentials allowing them access to various parts of the airport. "I really believe that the vast majority are very good employees and very good people who have been through a background check who have the same concerns that we have in the Transportation Security Administration in regard to security," said TSA's Earl Morris.

Last week's incident in Orlando showed how those with access to the airport can circumvent an airport's security procedures. Thomas Anthony Munoz, a Comair baggage handler, and a co-worker allegedly used their work uniforms and airport identification to get into restricted areas of the Orlando International Airport on March 5. The pair smuggled a duffel bag containing 14 firearms and eight pounds of marijuana onto a plane, authorities allege. Munoz went through the normal TSA screening, used his airport ID to return to the secure area, retrieved the bag and carried it onto a Delta flight headed for San Juan, according to court documents.

A tipster told police about the smuggling episode, and Munoz was approached by TSA screeners when the plane landed, authorities said. Munoz dropped the duffel bag on a table and said, "I'm busted," according to authorities. Three others -- including another Comair employee -- have since been arrested. Both Munoz and the other Comair employee have been relieved of their jobs, a Comair spokeswoman said.

TSA officials said all employees who work in sensitive areas of airports are routinely fingerprinted and given background checks, but those checks don't assure employees will refrain from misconduct. "I think you're going to find bad apples in any corporation or any form of government or anywhere in the world for that matter," Morris said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/12/tsa.crackdown/index.html

[Petronas]

2 arrested at Los Angeles airport for allegedly impersonating police
March 18, 2007 5:26 AM EDT

Two people who claimed to be taking a handcuffed prisoner to Hawaii for a court hearing were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after one was found to be carrying a gun without a permit, authorities said. A man and woman were arrested for investigation of impersonating police officers after they entered a security screening area at Terminal Three on Friday morning, Los Angeles Airport Police spokeswoman Belinda Nettles said Saturday.

The couple, who were wearing plainclothes, claimed to be law enforcement officers. The woman said she was carrying a firearm, and both claimed they had written documents indicating they were authorized to carry firearms, Nettles said. Airport police ran a check and found that neither was a police officer, and the woman did not have a permit to carry a gun, Nettles said.

The gun was seized and the pair were taken into custody. Officials did not immediately release their names. The "prisoner" also was taken into custody, Nettles said but she did not have additional details. The FBI said it was assisting local authorities in their investigation.

http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20070318/45fcc750_3421_1334520070318-665006578

[Petronas]

Jemaah Islamiyah and Aviation Security in Southeast Asia
March 26, 2007 03:11 PM

Why are generals are always preparing to fight the last war? Several weeks ago in a security conference in Sydney, Australia, I was asked of he possibility of two jet liners near simultaneously crashing into the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the iconic Opera House. With Khalid Sheikh Mohammad recently in the news, attention has re-centered on the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 attacks took years of planning a huge amount of money and an appallingly un-hostile environment in which they could plan. Reports of Middle Eastern men seeking pilot training (though expressing little interest in landings) would actually make it to the senior echelons of the FBI right now. A 9/11-style plot would be exceedingly difficult for even a resource rich and patient terrorist organization. Aviation will remain a key target of terrrorists, but not in the ways that most governments are thinking about. Low tech attacks can do every bit as much damage to an economy as spectacular plots to turn laden planes into guided missiles.

President Bush infamously hyped an operation out of Southeast Asia that intended to target the Library Tower in Los Angeles, California. His announcement, not coincidently, came immediately after the New York Times broke the story on the National Security Agency’s warrant-less wiretapping. What President Bush did not reveal was that although Khalid Sheikh Mohammed suggested a parallel attack to the American West Coast, Osama bin Laden rejected the operation and instructed him to remain focused on the east coast attacks; the California plot could come later. President Bush also ignored the fact that the one trained pilot recruited by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the regional Al Qaeda affiliate, figured out what he was being recruited for when the 9/11 attacks transpired and turned himself in to Malaysian authorities, ergo there were no pilots for the plot. It was a plot in the conception stage only, but hyped for political reasons, and sadly much of the American mass media reported it unquestioningly.

To be fair, two Singaporean members of JI, Mas Salamat Kastari and a Chinese convert to Islam, Johnny Wong aka Arifin bin Ali were plotting to hijack an Aeroflot jetliner from Bangkok and crash it into downtown Singapore to show solidarity with the Chechnyan separatists in 2002. Such an attack would have been a coffin nail for the Singaporean economy. Yet, like the Library Tower, this plot was not even, to my knowledge, in operational planning. Neither Kastari nor bin Ali was a trained pilot, nor is there public source proof that there were trained pilots in their cell. Kastari fled to Indonesia where he was arrested and later rendered to Singapore. Johnny Wong was arrested in Thailand and also rendered to Singapore.

To be sure, planes remain a very appealing target to terrorists, the world over. Yet, the hijacking of planes, and turning them into human bombs is really not the greatest threat to aviation security in Southeast Asia. For one thing, the cockpits have been hardened. And frankly even if terrorists could get knives or weapons on board, were a hijacking situation to occur, pilots would let the hijackers slit throats while they flew evasive actions and landed; they would not open cockpit doors.

The first post-traditional terrorist hijacking was of course Ramzi Yousef’s 1995 Bojinka Plot to bomb 11 US jetliners. In that plot, staged in a December 1994 dry run, small chemical bombs were hidden under seats of planes, detonated by small Casio watches. (The plane was close enough to an airport and the bomb was small enough though it killed the Japanese man whose seat it was under, for the plane to make an emergency landing). An accident during the manufacture of the bombs thwarted the attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed outlined in his recent Guantanamo Bay hearing how the two smuggled components on to planes.

Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, with his triacetone triperoxide (TATP)-filled shoe and simple lit-fuse detonator in December 2001 illustrated terrorists’ pre-occupation with airlines. And with good reason: A successful attack on an airline would do more to hamper global economy than any other type of terrorist incident with resources and knowledge currently at their disposal. Last summer’s London plot reinforced the vulnerability of the airlines. Similar to Ramzi Yousef’s Bojinka plot, the 10 chemical bombs were of a slightly different composition, but in many ways far more ingenious. The plot involved hiding a chemical gel comprised of a peroxide-based explosives – either triacetone triperoxide (TATP) or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) – in the false bottom of a sports drink. The chemical gel was to have been died to match the color of the sports drink. The London plot also fundamentally differed from the Bojinka plot in that they entailed suicide bombers, Yousef’s plot did not.

Rather than planes as guided missiles, there is much more likelihood of a small bomb detonating mid flight and depressurizing the cabin. There is still the threat of such devices in Southeast Asia, where airport security is more lax. One could enter a rural airport with a device and continue on to larger airports, never to have your luggage screened again. While aviation authorities engage in rigorous screening of personnel, there are a lot of caterers, support personnel, cleaners who come from the lower echelons of society. Not every parcel and provision entering the secured tarmac area can be checked.

In early 2005 Philippine police raided an Abu Sayyaf safe-house in a Manila suburb and found plastic explosives melted down and injected into toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles. The only thing that Philippine security authorities though that the 12 devices could be used for was for uses on airplanes. The bombs, in test runs, made it through all Philippine airport security. One should not forget that Ramzi Yousef was operating in the Abu Sayyaf’s name in 1994-95.

Yet the greatest threat comes from MANPADS and even smaller small arms. One should not forget that before the 9/11 attacks, the most lethal and costly terrorist attack in 2001 was committed by the Tamil Tigers on Sri Lanka’s international airport. A highly trained and heavily armed 14-man squad penetrated the 800-acre high security complex in the night of 24 July 2001, and destroyed or damaged 26 commercial and military aircraft. Three Airbus jetliners- half the commercial fleet of Airlanka – was destroyed: $350 million in losses. We should note that Cathay Pacific today announced that it had canceled flights in and out of Columbo, Sri Lanka, owing to the Tamil Tigers’ first air attack (a small light aircraft dropped two bombs) on the Air Force’s base, adjacent to the international airport, yesterday.

More widely reported, in November 2002, terrorists launched two shoulder-fired SA-7 missiles at an Israeli charter flight taking off from Mombasa, Kenya, with 271 passengers on board, though they missed. Hambali, JI’s chief of operations, was actively searching MANPADS out for use in Thailand in 2002-03. MANPADS are of varying size and capability and their success is not guaranteed. And there are counter-measures available- but they are exorbidently expensive, estimated to be $1 million per plane.

But short of MANPADS against planes moving at several hundreds of miles an hour, militants could simply used RPG-2s or heavy machine guns (.50 caliber) against planes on the tarmac or taxiways. Frankly it is shocking that this sort of attack hasn’t transpired. It is simplicity in its element. There are roads and easy access, usually lightly patrolled, along most runways and taxiways. British investigators have found cells that were in the planning and weapons procurement stages of such an attack on Heathrow. And sadly small arms are readily available across the region.

Yet from a vain terrorist’s point of view, and they are often very vain, it is not a spectacular event, with meticulous planning and vast resources. Yet it is exceptionally cost-effective, easily within their means and capabilities. If someone is willing to be blown up on a plane, why not in a volley of gunfire from responding police as they take aim at the planes stuck in the bedlam on the tarmac? Instead of invasive photo imaging that is being experimented now in American airports to find box cutters hidden in underwear, governments, airport authorities and security personnel should do more to police and monitor areas in which terrorists can attack with readily available small arms.

The new screening devices are very high tech – and the Americans in particular always believe they can defeat an enemy through technology. But what about against low tech threats such as RPG-2s manufactured in crude metal fabrication shops? The MILF makes such weapons in central Mindanao. Crude and with mixed reliability to be sure, but terrorists only need to be lucky once in Gerry Adams’ familiar phrase. I’m sure the corporations who make the expensive equipment are important campaign donors, but we are talking about the global economy, not the next campaign. And it is unlikely that the newest generation technologies could be employed anywhere in Southeast Asia, other than Singapore, owing to the cost.

Terrorists learn, including from their mistakes or plots that were thwarted by increasingly adept security forces. And they have very limited resources. Sometimes that calls for a back to basics approach. If their goal is to cripple global commerce and travel, they need not drive farther than the nearest international airport with small money, little training and a lot of bravado.

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/jemaah_islamiyah_and_aviation.php

[Petronas]

Sudan (Country threat level - 4): A Sudan Airways aircraft en route from Libya to Sudan carrying 210 passengers was temporarily hijacked by an unidentified suspect on 30 March 2007. The hijacker, armed with a knife, stormed the cockpit approximately one and a half hours before the flight was expected to arrive in Khartoum and demanded to meet with the U.S. and British ambassadors and journalists. Upon landing at Khartoum Airport (HSSS/KRT), security forces posing as journalists boarded the aircraft and subdued the hijacker, and the passengers were released unharmed. The hijacker was taken into custody, but the motive for the incident is not currently known.

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

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TSA Dragnet Aims to Block Potential Threats
March 29, 2007

Like Eliot Ness and the Untouchables, squads of special security agents are fanning out across the country in an effort to stop potential security threats posed by airport and airline employees. The Transportation Security Administration's dragnet follows the arrest in San Juan of a Florida-based worker who allegedly smuggled drugs and guns onto a Comair flight.

More than 800,000 airline and airport employees have had unrestricted access to planes -- even though the nationwide alert system for aviation has been stuck on orange, or high, since British authorities broke up a plot last August to bomb planes bound for the U.S.

Because of recent problems in the region, the TSA targeted Florida and Puerto Rico airports first, sending out 160 special officers to screen the screeners, as well as others with previously-free access. The list includes mechanics, baggage handlers, and fuel workers, among others.

Although all airport and airline employees must submit to TSA background checks, random screening of such workers started only last year -- five years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Such employees need electronic photo ID cards to enter secured areas but have not been required to submit to regular screening. That void is about to close. In fact, Congress will soon consider a bill that requires the TSA to conduct a six-month test of total screening for employees at five selected airports. Passage is probable, since the absence of screening for workers is a bipartisan issue with strong Congressional support.

Under the TSA's latest action, squads of security officers -- including air marshals, screeners, and special inspectors -- will hone in on particular airports and spend days examining security procedures, screening workers, and even examining passenger cabins of parked planes. Their presence is expected to have a deterrent effect on potential problems.

Critics of the new plan contend that checking employees as well as passengers will clog screening lines and create massive delays. But the TSA insists that screening of airline and airport workers will be conducted separately and apart from the passenger security areas.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/03/travel_tsa.html

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Nigeria: Terrorism - Aviation Authority Foils Airplane Attack
March 29, 2007

What would have been a major security breach was averted by the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) Tuesday night at the International wing of Murtala Mohammed International Airport when its officials discovered what it described as "prohibited items" from a Nigerian passenger about to travel on an international airline.

Although FAAN totally declined to give details or identity of the passenger, THISDAY investigations revealed that he was trying to board a British Airways flight with Gun and sixty rounds of ammunitions but was caught at the first screening point installed by FAAN at the international airport. ..

Breaking the news to journalist yesterday in Abuja, Managing Director of FAAN, Mallam Mohammed Yusuf said the matterwas being investigated and the outcome would be made public in due course.

"There was a kind of security breach yesterday. We thanked God for the collaborative efforts of the security agencies like the state security services, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the Nigeria Customs Service," Yusuf said.

Narrating how it happened, he explained :"It happened after 10 o'clock yesterday night. There is a passenger wanting to board one of the international flight with items that were prohibited, things that were not allowed to go beyond the screening point and what we did at the security check through the newly installed screening machines, we were able to find that these items he was trying to carry on board were unauthorised. What we did was to quickly call the security agencies and we cannot conclude as to what actually should be the conclusion and what we did was to call the agencies to hand the man over to them and they are looking at it."

Minister of State for Air Transportation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode remarked that, "had it not been for the efforts of FAAN and dedication to duty of its officials yesterday (Tuesday night), only God knows what we would be talking today.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200703290899.html

[Petronas]

Undercover agents slip bombs past DIA screeners
3/30/2007 10:29:41 PM

Checkpoint security screeners at Denver International Airport last month failed to find liquid explosives packed in carry-on luggage and also improvised explosive devices, or IED's, worn by undercover agents sources told 9NEWS. "It really is concerning considering that we're paying millions of dollars out of our budget to be secure in the airline industry," said passenger Mark Butler who has had two Army Swiss knives confiscated by screeners in the past. "Yet, we're not any safer than we were before 9/11, in my opinion."

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners failed most of the covert tests because of human error, sources told 9NEWS. Alarms went off on the machines, but sources said screeners violated TSA standard operating procedures and did not hand-search suspicious luggage, wand, or pat down the undercover agents.

"The good news is we have our own people probing and looking and examining the system," said Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat in the 7th congressional who sits on the House Homeland Security and transportation committees. "The bad news is they're finding weaknesses."

After 9NEWS told Perlmutter about the undercover results, he requested a classified briefing from the TSA about the team. Four TSA and Homeland Security Department officials briefed the congressman last week. "The bottom line is, we've got to plug those holes," said Perlmutter. "We can't have those kinds of problems because we want to have people who fly across this nation be as safe as possible."

In one test, sources told 9NEWS an agent taped an IED to her leg and told the screener it was a bandage from surgery. Even though alarms sounded on the walk-through metal detector, the agent was able to bluff her way past the screener. "If they miss something that's obvious, often times that could happen, we will pull them off the line and retrain them," said Security Director Earl Morris at TSA headquarters in Washington, D.C. "That's how we audit and keep track of which people are doing a better job than others and how we keep this whole process so that it really is one that's legitimate and factual and actually is effective." The TSA would not confirm the test results obtained by 9NEWS.

The covert testers who were at DIA are part of the TSA's Red Team. The Red Team was formed by the Federal Aviation Administration after terrorists blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people. The Red Team tests about 100 airports nationwide every year, according to Morris. It halted testing after 9/11. Since it re-started testing in 2003, the Red Team has investigated security at approximately 735 airports. The team tested DIA once during 2006 and on February 12 to 14, said Morris. The agents act and think like terrorists to find vulnerabilities in the aviation security system.

The Red Team uses very expensive chemical simulates in the test devices that look, smell and taste like real explosives, except they do not explode. To the CTX bomb detection machines at DIA, they are real explosives, according to a former Red Team leader.

Sources told 9NEWS the Red Team was able to sneak about 90 percent of simulated weapons past checkpoint screeners in Denver. In the baggage area, screeners caught one explosive device that was packed in a suitcase. However later, screeners in the baggage area missed a book bomb, according to sources.

"There's very little substance to security," said former Red Team leader Bogdan Dzakovic. "It literally is all window dressing that we're doing. It's big theater on TV and when you go to the airport. It's just security theater."

Dzakovic was a Red Team leader from 1995 until September 11, 2001. After the terrorist attacks, Dzakovic became a federally protected whistleblower and alleged that thousands of people died needlessly. He testified before the 9/11 Commission and the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US that the Red Team "breached security with ridiculous ease up to 90 percent of the time," and said the FAA "knew how vulnerable aviation security was."

Dzakovic, who is currently a TSA inspector, said security is no better today. "It's worse now. The terrorists can pretty much do what they want when they want to do it," he said.

TSA's Morris disagrees with that. "We have a very robust program of which we are very proud, in which we utilize testing at all of our airports every single day," said Morris.

The security chief says he expects screeners to fail the Red Team tests because they are difficult. "We could put these tests together so that we have a 100 percent success rate every single time," said Morris. "Then, they wouldn't be challenging, they wouldn't be realistic and they really wouldn't be stretching the limits and the imagination of the Transportation Security Officer."

Morris says the tests are designed to be tough so that officers can learn from their mistakes and successes. "It's a test but it's also a learning experience," said Morris. "It's a constant audit that we put on there to see where our employees are and where we need to enhance the weaknesses."

Morris says other agents, not with the Red Team, test and train screeners every day at the nation's 450 airports and says screeners pass most of those tests. In those kinds of tests, he said Denver has done well in the past.

However, tests done by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2006 found widespread failures. According to the GAO, screeners at 15 airports missed 90 percent of the explosives and guns agents tried to sneak past checkpoints.

Also, a Denver woman who carries a Taser for personal protection, told 9NEWS she carried it on board airplanes last year six times. Her Taser shoots 500,000 volts of electricity. She says the TSA never caught it and stopped her.

Most test results, including results from the Red Team, are secret, classified as SSI or sensitive security information. Morris says they do not make them public because they could point out holes in the system. "We're actually fighting a war on terror. Our intent is not to educate the public on how we do tests and what are tests consist of. Our sole objective is to prevent those who have intent to do us harm from being able to successfully complete their mission."

Sources who leaked the test results to 9Wants to Know say they were concerned about the failures and want security improved. Morris says the screeners were told about the failures and the problems were fixed. He called 9Wants to Know's sources 'disgruntled and underachieving employees.' "Anyone who violates the rule we have in place for divulging information that is sensitive and secret, that jeopardizes the security of this country is wrong," said Morris. "They're out of line, it's not acceptable and it's not appropriate."

Dzakovic, who testified that the FAA ordered the Red Team to "not write up our findings," said the TSA is also trying to hide its results. "The last thing TSA wants to do is look bad in front of congress and in front of the public, so rather than fix the problem, they'd rather just keep them quiet," said Dzakovic.

Dzakovic says aviation security needs fundamental changes if it's going to improve. "If anything of value is to be achieved out of this latest round of testing in Denver, congressmen need to go into the internal mechanics of how TSA operates in order to really affect change," said Dzakovic. "Because if they don't, next year there will be another round of testing, get them same kind of results and it's just a matter of time before potentially thousands of more people get killed."

While Morris said security can always get better, it's already excellent. "We understand that security is not perfect in every aspect but we understand that we go about trying to be perfect every single day and we are doing a tremendous job out there and the public should feel comfortable flying out today and quite frankly, they do," he said.

Sources tell 9Wants to Know screeners failed the tests because they feel pressured to put passengers on planes quickly and say they are short-staffed. When the TSA took over screening at DIA in 2002, there were 1100 officers. However, there are only 750 today because Congress capped funding for employees. Perlmutter voted last week for a bill that gives more money for aviation security, but the President said he'll veto the bill because it includes time lines on ending the war in Iraq.

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=67166

[Petronas]

Bin Laden’ airline man arrested at airport
11:46am Thursday 29th March 2007

A MAN from Bury was overpowered by terrified passengers on a flight from Dubai. The 37-year-old was heard to shout Bin Laden' and white scum' while in a drunken rage on a jet heading for Manchester last Thursday. The pilot of the Emirates Boeing 777 was forced to radio Manchester Airport and ask police to meet the flight when it landed.

One passenger said: "The man had his top off and kept shouting the words 'Allah', 'Bin Laden' and 'white scum'. Then I heard him shout, I'm not a terrorist, I'm not a terrorist'. He just wouldn't shut up. He was going on and on. It was frightening. People were trying to calm him down." A struggle broke out between the man and several passengers, and he was eventually overpowered. He was later arrested by police on suspicion of assault, endangering an aircraft and being drunk on board a plane. He has been bailed until May pending further investigations.

A spokesman for Emirates said: "We can confirm there was a disturbance involving some passengers before flight EK017 arrived at Manchester Airport. "As a result, police were called to the aircraft at the crew's request and the matter is now being dealt with by them. The safety of the aircraft was at no time compromised. However, Emirates takes such incidents very seriously and we will not tolerate disruptive passengers on board our aircraft."

http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/news/headlines/display.var.1294320.0.bin_laden_airline_man_arrest ed_at_airport.php

[Petronas]

DHS to test air cargo screening processes
3/28/2007 5:33:00 PM -0400

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is launching its third pilot project to test technology and techniques for passenger plane air cargo screening. The pilot will begin this spring at Cincinnati airport, the department said in a statement this week.

Homeland Security has a $30 million program to develop technology and work processes to screen air cargo carried on passenger planes for explosives. Launched last June, the program is already running two other pilots, at San Francisco and Seattle-Tacoma airports.

The Cincinnati pilot "is designed to test the screening of significant amounts of cargo within an air cargo facility and will focus on areas to include assessing the flow and speed of cargo screening," said the statement. "Testing of this nature will provide critical knowledge to help the Transportation Security Administration make future decisions," the statement said, adding the department was "interested in data that illustrates economic and operational impacts to air carriers from enhanced screening levels."

The pilot at San Francisco is testing x-ray systems, explosive trace detectors, and automated explosives detection systems. At Seattle-Tacoma, according to the statement "the focus is on detecting hidden intruders and stowaways."

The program is a collaboration between the department's Science and Technology Directorate and the Transportation Security Administration, along with personnel from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Transportation Security Laboratory. Homeland Security is under pressure to deliver solutions in the air cargo area, which senior members of the new Democratic leadership in Congress see as an important vulnerability, and will address in the new Sept. 11 reform bill -- if it does not get vetoed by President Bush.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20070328-045606-9449r

[Petronas]

Munitions Found in Restroom
Monday, April 2, 2007; B03

A cleaning crew at Reagan National Airport found two nonlethal munitions Friday in a trash can of a men's room in the C concourse at the north end of the terminal. Airport police contacted an explosive ordnance disposal unit, which determined that the devices, known as flash grenades, were designed to produce only noise and smoke, airport spokesman Rob Yingling said. The findings did not disrupt airport operations, Yingling said. The men's room, near the ticketing concourse, is outside airport security. The grenades were found about 10:15 a.m. Police removed them from the airport without incident about an hour later, Yingling said. Airport police and FBI officials are investigating how the devices ended up there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/01/AR2007040100935_pf.html

[al-Canine]

TSA to police: Look out for possible terrorist attack 'dry runs'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Police across the country should be on the lookout for what could be "dry runs" for a terrorist attack, the Transportation Security Administration advised after series of suspicious incidents occurred at U.S. airports.

An unclassified advisory, sent July 20 from TSA to law enforcement agencies, raised the possibility that recent activity could be "pre-attack security probes."

CNN obtained the advisory from a government source.

The TSA downplayed the significance of the advisory in a statement released to the media following its leak.

The TSA said it was one of more than 90 bulletins sent to police in the past six months "with the intent to provide as much information as possible to our front line officers."

"There is no intelligence that indicates a specific or credible threat to the homeland," the TSA said.

The advisory details four incidents from the past 11 months in which screeners found unusual objects with items that could mimic bomb components in passengers' checked or carry-on bags.

In one case last September, a couple in Baltimore, Maryland, checked a plastic bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag containing a cell phone charger. Earlier this month in San Diego, California, a passenger checked a bag containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay in them instead of the normal blue gel.

Terrorists could be testing the system, or could be conducting repeated operations to desensitize security officials, the bulletin says.

"The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern, and TSA personnel should continue vigilance for groupings of ordinary items that look like IED (Improvised Explosive Device) components," the bulletin says.

At least three of the four incidents involved U.S. citizens, the advisory says. While "initial investigations do not link them with criminal or terrorist organizations," the bulletin adds that "most passengers' explanations for carrying the suspicious items were questionable, and some investigations are still ongoing."

The bulletin also details a case from June in which a passenger in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, had a carry-on bag with items resembling IED components, such as a wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes and two blocks of cheese.

And in November, a passenger in Houston, Texas, checked luggage that contained a plastic bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals and pipes.

The bulletin is titled "Incidents at U.S. Airports May Suggest Possible Pre-Attack Probing." It is labeled "For Official Use Only."

"We constantly feed intelligence and training information to our officers and the law enforcement community and this is one example of such information sharing," the TSA said in its statement.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/24/tsa.incidents

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Turkish hijacking ends peacefully
Saturday, 18 August 2007, 11:56 GMT 12:56 UK

Two men who tried to hijack a Turkish plane have surrendered after all 136 passengers and crew escaped unharmed. The Atlas Jet plane was flying from Northern Cyprus to Istanbul when the two men tried to divert it to Iran. Instead, the pilot landed the plane in the southern city of Antalya, claiming it needed refuelling.

Turkey's interior ministry said one of the hijackers was a Turkish national and the other had a Syrian passport. Their motives are not yet known. Earlier, Northern Cyprus officials said the two men were Iranian nationals protesting against actions of the United States.

The hijackers announced after the plane landed that women and children could leave. But when the emergency exits were opened almost everyone rushed out, the BBC's Turkey correspondent Sarah Rainsford reports. Many leapt from the wing of the plane to safety. The two pilots also jumped from the cockpit on the tarmac, in order to avoid having to fly the plane to Tehran.

Eventually all passengers and crew members were released unharmed and the hijackers surrendered. They are being questioned by interior ministry officials.

Passengers spoke of their panic as the hijack began, when, they said, the pilot appeared for a moment to lose control of the plane.

The men are not thought to have had guns, though passengers described a suspect package that might have been a bomb. Officials in northern Cyprus say their security checks are up to international standards and so far they have no reason to believe there were explosives on board.

An official from the airline, Atlas Jet, said that there were 136 passengers and six crew on the plane when it left Ercan Airport in Northern Cyprus. Shortly afterwards two men tried to forced their way into the cockpit. When they did not succeed, the men asked to be flown to Iran, but the plane landed in Antalya, after the pilot claimed it needed refuelling.

Plane hijacks and bomb threats are not uncommon in Turkey, where a number of radical groups - ranging from Kurdish separatists to far-left militants - operate. In the last 18 months several such incidents have been defused without any passengers being harmed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6952594.stm

[Petronas]

Their motives are not yet known.Turkish airplane hijacked by militants
18 Aug 2007, 1233 hrs IST,AGENCIES

Hijackers claiming to have bombs and to be members of Al-Qaida on Saturday hijacked a Turkish passenger plane heading from northern Cyprus to Istanbul. The two hijackers are Iranians ...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Turkish_airplane_hijacked_by_Al-Qaida/articleshow/2290345.cms

[Petronas]

Missile dumped at US gun amnesty
Saturday, 18 August 2007, 19:14 GMT 20:14 UK

A man in Florida surprised police by handing in a surface-to-air missile launcher during a gun amnesty in the city of Orlando. Under the no-questions-asked scheme, "Kicks for Guns", anyone who surrendered a firearm would receive trainers or $50 (£25). The Orlando Sentinel newspaper said the man exchanged the rocket launcher for designer footwear for his daughter.

He told the newspaper he found the 4ft (1.2m) weapon in a shed last week. The unidentified man said he had tried in vain to get rid of the launcher, which is designed to blow aircraft out of the sky. "I took it to three dumps to try to get rid of it and they told me to get lost." "I didn't know what to do with it, so I brought it here," he told the newspaper.

Besides the missile launcher, Orlando Police collected more than 310 guns during the amnesty. After inspecting the rocket launcher, police spokeswoman Sgt Barbara Jones said: "I tell you, you never know what you're going to get."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6953374.stm

[al-Canine]

6 Syrians detained on flight from Cuba

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Six Syrians who were detained in Panama after a flight crew reported suspicious behavior told authorities that three of them had approached the cockpit by mistake, police said Tuesday.
The Syrians, who were traveling together on a Copa Airlines flight from Cuba, were also suspected of taking a knife that went missing after breakfast was served in the first-class cabin where they were sitting, Panama's National Police said in a news release.

Late Tuesday, Judicial Police Director Jose Ayu Prado said investigators had determined that a Cuban who was arrested along with the Syrians was not traveling with them and would be allowed to continue on his journey to Argentina.

Police said three of the Syrians approached the cockpit door and tried to open it. They told investigators they confused it with the bathroom, the statement said. Panama's Judicial Police also said the men tried to get into the cockpit.

Earlier, Panamanian Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Victor de la Hoz had denied that the passengers tried to gain access to the cockpit, and said the crew simply notified authorities on the ground that a knife was missing.

Ayu Prado said the passengers' luggage was inspected by trained dogs that "nothing suspicious had been found."

The Syrians were still under arrest at Panama's international airport Tuesday night and authorities had 24 hours to file charges, Ayu Prado said.

Panama's National Police director, Rolando Mirones, said the suspects "did not commit any violent acts inside the airplane, but they raised suspicions."

The plane landed safely shortly before noon.

Ayu Prado said the Syrians, ages 17 to 30, were headed for Haiti and Jamaica after a layover in Panama.

Like many commercial airlines, Copa ordered cockpit doors locked on its jetliners after the Sept. 11, 2001, airplane attacks in the United States.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09-26-syrians-detained_N.htm

[Petronas]

Most fake bombs missed by screeners

Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.

At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons — including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players. San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows. The TSA ran about 70 tests at Los Angeles, 75 at Chicago and 145 at San Francisco.

The report looks only at those three airports, using them as case studies to understand how well the rest of the U.S. screening system is working to stop terrorists from carrying bombs through checkpoints.

The failure rates at Los Angeles and Chicago stunned security experts. "That's a huge cause for concern," said Clark Kent Ervin, the Homeland Security Department's former inspector general. Screeners' inability to find bombs could encourage terrorists to try to bring them on airplanes, Ervin said, and points to the need for more screener training and more powerful checkpoint scanning machines.

In the past year, the TSA has adopted a more aggressive approach in its attempt to keep screeners attentive — the agency runs covert tests every day at every U.S. airport, TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said. Screeners who miss detonators, timers, batteries and blocks that resemble plastic explosives get remedial training. The failure rates at Los Angeles and Chicago are "somewhat misleading" because they don't reflect screeners' improved ability to find bombs, Howe said.

TSA chief Kip Hawley, responding to previous reports about screeners missing hidden weapons, told a House hearing Tuesday that high failure rates stem from increasingly difficult covert tests that require screeners to find bomb parts the size of a pen cap. "We moved from testing of completely assembled bombs … to the small component parts," he said. Terrorists bringing a homemade bomb on an airplane, or bringing on bomb parts and assembling them in the cabin, is the top threat against aviation. "Their focus is on using items easily available off grocery and hardware store shelves," Hawley said.

A report on covert tests in 2002 found screeners failed to find fake bombs, dynamite and guns 24% of the time. The TSA ran those tests shortly after it took over checkpoint screening from security companies. Tests earlier in 2002 showed screeners missing 60% of fake bombs. In the late 1990s, tests showed that screeners missed about 40% of fake bombs, according to a separate report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The recent TSA report says San Francisco screeners face constant covert tests and are "more suspicious."

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20071018/1a_lede18_dom.art.htm

[Petronas]

Passenger jets get anti-missile devices
Updated 1d 12h ago

Tens of thousands of airline passengers will soon be flying on jets outfitted with anti-missile systems as part of a new government test aimed at thwarting terrorists armed with shoulder-fired projectiles. Three American Airlines Boeing 767-200s that fly daily round-trip routes between New York and California will receive the anti-missile laser jammers this spring, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which is spending $29 million on the tests.

Jets will fly with the jammer device mounted on the belly of the plane, between the wheels. The device works with sensors, also mounted on the plane, that detect a heat-seeking missile and shoot a laser at it to send the missile veering harmlessly off course.

Anti-missile systems have been tested on cargo planes. But "this is the first time these systems have been tested on actual passenger airlines in commercial service," says Burt Keirstead, director of commercial aircraft protection at BAE Systems, which developed the anti-missile device. "It's the ultimate consumer use of the equipment."

Officials emphasize that no missiles will be test-fired at the planes, which will fly between New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and the international airports in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The purpose of the tests is to determine how well the laser-jamming technology works on routine flights, how the devices affect fuel consumption and how much maintenance they require, according to Keirstead.

Although there has not been an attempt to take down a jet on U.S. soil with a shoulder-fired missile, Homeland Security has warned about the possibility because the portable, lightweight weapons can be bought on the black market for as little as a few hundred dollars. There have been numerous deadly attacks on military jets and cargo planes overseas, and several near collisions with passenger planes. In 2002, two shoulder-fired missiles narrowly missed an Israeli airliner jet as it took off with 261 passengers in Mombassa, Kenya.

The Defense Department uses laser-jamming technology on its planes, but using the systems on commercial airliners is much more controversial because of concerns about cost and maintenance. "If this is going to break down every other month vs. every fifth year, obviously that's a big, big difference," says Jim Tuttle of the Homeland Security Department's Science and Technology division.

Keirstead says the systems could be installed for somewhere from $500,000 to $1 million per plane, but it's unclear how much it would cost to maintain them. Airlines have balked at paying the cost, and Congress would have to decide whether the federal government would foot the bill.

American Airlines spokesman John Hotard says company officials agreed to participate in the tests in case Congress eventually requires airlines to install the devices. But American is "philosophically opposed" to anti-missile technology on commercial planes, he says. "When you look at the cost benefit, it would be an extremely expensive proposition, and in the end, is it really going to work?"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-04-anti-missile-jets_N.htm

[Petronas]

Bush orders clampdown on flights to US
Monday February 11 2008

The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines. The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as "blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's requirements.

According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said. And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a ticket, a procedure that will take several days. The data from the US's new electronic transport authorisation system is to be combined with extensive personal passenger details already being provided by EU countries to the US for the "profiling" of potential terrorists and assessment of other security risks.

Washington is also asking European airlines to provide personal data on non-travellers - for example family members - who are allowed beyond departure barriers to help elderly, young or ill passengers to board aircraft flying to America, a demand the airlines reject as "absurd".

Seven demands tabled by Washington are contained in a 10-page "memorandum of understanding" (MOU) that the US authorities are negotiating or planning to negotiate with all EU governments, according to ministers and diplomats from EU member states and senior officials in Brussels. The Americans have launched their security drive with some of the 12 mainly east European EU countries whose citizens still need visas to enter the US.

"The Americans are trying to get a beefing up of their visa-waiver programmes. It's all contained in the MOU they want to put to all EU member states," said a diplomat from a west European country. "It's a very delicate problem."

As part of a controversial passenger data exchange programme allegedly aimed at combating terrorism, the EU has for the past few months been supplying the American authorities with 19 items of information on every traveller flying from the EU to the US. The new American demands go well beyond what was agreed under that passenger name record (PNR) system and look certain to cause disputes within Europe and between Europe and the US.

Brussels is pressing European governments not to sign the bilateral deals with the Americans to avoid weakening the EU bargaining position. But Washington appears close to striking accords on the new travel regime with Greece and the Czech Republic. Both countries have sizeable diaspora communities in America, while their citizens need visas to enter the US. Visa-free travel would be popular in both countries.

A senior EU official said the Americans could get "a gung-ho frontrunner" to sign up to the new regime and then use that agreement "as a rod to beat the other member states with". The frontrunner appears to be the Czech Republic. On Wednesday, Richard Barth of the department of homeland security was in Prague to negotiate with the Czech deputy prime minister, Alexandr Vondra. Prague hoped to sign the US memorandum "in the spring", Vondra said. "The EU has done nothing for us on visas," he said. "There was no help, no solidarity in the past. It's in our interest to move ahead. We can't just wait and do nothing. We have to act in the interest of our citizens."

While the Czechs are in a hurry to sign up, Brussels is urging delay in order to try to reach a common European position. "There is a process of consultation and coordination under way," said Jonathan Faull, a senior European commission official involved in the negotiations with the Americans. To European ears, the US demands sound draconian. "This would oblige the European countries to allow US air marshals on US flights. It's controversial and difficult," an EU official said. At the moment the use of air marshals is discretionary for European states and airlines.

While armed American guards would be entitled to sit on the European flights to the US, the Americans also want the PNR data transfers extended from travellers from Europe to the US to include the details of those whose flights are not to America, but which overfly US territory, say to central America or the Caribbean.

Brussels has told Washington that its demands raise legal problems in Europe over data protection, over guarantees on how the information is handled, over which US agencies have access to it or with whom it might be shared, and over issues of redress if the data is misused.

The Association of European Airlines, representing 31 airlines, including all the big west European national carriers, has told the US authorities that there is "no international legal foundation" for supplying them with data about passengers on flights overflying US territory.

The US Transport Security Administration has also asked the European airlines to supply personal data on "certain non-travelling members of the public requesting access to areas beyond the screening checkpoint". The AEA said this was "absurd" because the airlines neither obtain nor can obtain such information. The request was "fully unjustified".

If the Americans persevere in the proposed security crackdown, Brussels is likely to respond with tit-for-tat action, such as calling for visas for some Americans. European governments, however, would probably veto such action, one official said, not least for fear of the "massive disruption given the huge volume of transatlantic traffic".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/11/usa.theairlineindustry

[al-Canine]

Unchecked aliens cram flight schools

BY BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Despite tough post-9/11 laws, thousands of foreign students are training at U.S. flight schools without proper visas or security background checks, government documents show.

"TSA's enforcement is basically nonexistent," Bill McNease, a former Federal Aviation Administration inspector, said in an interview aired last night on ABC's "World News With Charles Gibson." Revelations that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers were trained as pilots in the United States prompted a crackdown on flight schools.

Legislation was passed requiring the schools to do security background checks and notify the federal Transportation Security Administration. But internal TSA documents found by ABC News indicate the rules are largely ignored.

"Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9/11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," Richard Horn, a TSA regional official, wrote in a 2005 letter to his boss. McNease said he found at least 8,000 foreign students in the FAA database who got pilot's licenses without being approved by the TSA.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/02/28/2008-02-28_unchecked_aliens_cram_flight_schools.html

[Petronas]

Bond OK'd For Man With Box Cutter At Tampa Airport
March 13, 2008

TAMPA A 22-year-old Clearwater man, arrested at Tampa International Airport after security personnel said they found a box cutter hidden inside a hollowed out book, will be released on a $25,000 signature bond, federal officials said.

A federal judge has allowed the uncle of Benjamin Baines Jr., to use his signature as bail, said Steve Cole, the spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa. If Baines does not show for court, his uncle must pay $25,000.

If convicted, Baines faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on a federal charge of attempting to board an airplane with a concealed dangerous weapon. He received a 30-day sentence after pleading guilty Monday to a state misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon.

On Feb. 17, airport security ran Baines' backpack through an X-ray machine and saw the image of a box cutter, according to a report from the Transportation Security Administration.

When searching the backpack, a security officer found a book titled "Fear Itself." The book was hollowed out, and the box cutter was inside, the report said.

After Baines was read his rights, he said his cousin had cut away the pages to make the hollow section in the book, reports said. Later, he said he had hollowed it out himself to hide money and marijuana from his roommates, authorities said.

Officers said Baines told them he was moving to Las Vegas and forgot the cutter was in the book.

Officers performed a background check and found no criminal record.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/mar/13/bond-okd-man-box-cutter-tampa-airport/

[Casey]

China steps up air security after alleged terror plot


BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese authorities have announced tighter airport security ahead of the Beijing Olympics after saying an alleged Muslim terrorist tried to blow up a plane with soft drink cans containing petrol.

Passengers will no longer be allowed to take liquids onto domestic flights, according to regulations posted on the national aviation authority's website, which said more specifics on that ban would be announced soon.

Airport staff must also increase hand baggage checks, while "easy boarding services" that provide quicker boarding procedures for a fee have been banned under the new regulations, posted Thursday.

Airlines must also guarantee they are not carrying the checked-in luggage of passengers who have failed to board planes, while vehicles entering airport control zones must also go through security checks.

China's airline security regulations have previously allowed for small amounts of liquids, such as perfumes and hand lotions.

But soft drink sized containers were banned in the years following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.

The official Xinhua news agency cited Li Jiaxiang, the aviation authority's director, as saying safety precautions would be tightened even further during the Olympic Games in August.

The new rules come after Chinese authorities said they foiled a terrorist plot by a 19-year-old Muslim woman to blow up a commercial airliner heading for Beijing.

The woman intended to explode the petrol bombs in the toilet of a China Southern Airlines flight from Urumqi city in the country's far northwestern region of Xinjiang, Chinese state press reports said.

Chinese authorities have refused to disclose details about the alleged terrorist threat, leading to questions from rights groups about whether there really was a major attack planned.

Some rights groups have alleged that authorities are trying to raise alarm about terrorist attacks from its Muslim-populated Xinjiang region so they have an excuse to silence all forms of dissent against Chinese rule.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g-taUDbyM_mKMtLSAtg9d6az8Jcg

[Petronas]

Contractor tests missile defense technology for civilian airliners
March 26, 2008

Northrop Grumman Corp. has completed testing and production of the first onboard infrared system to protect civilian airliners from shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.
Northrop's Guardian System, along with a parallel program still in the works by BAE Systems of Rockville, Md., could provide aircraft with needed protection from a cheap and easy-to-acquire weapon that is popular with terrorists.
Similar missile defense systems already are utilized by 400 U.S. and allied military planes across the globe, including in theater in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are saving lives every day with this type of technology," said Jack Pledger, director of business development at Northrop's defensive system division during a media briefing on Wednesday at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The Homeland Security Department began its counter-MANPADS (man-portable air defense system) program in the fall of 2003, shortly after two shoulder-fired missiles narrowly missed an Arkia Israeli Airlines flight taking off from Mombasa, Kenya.

The agency hired Northrop Grumman, based in Arlington, Va., and BAE Systems to convert the existing anti-missile military technology for use on civilian aircrafts. The five-year contract was worth $105 million for each firm.
The Guardian System is a tear-shaped, 500-pound device that attaches to the bottom of an aircraft. The pod is equipped with four rotating missile warning sensors that operate on a complicated algorithm to determine threat levels. In the event of an attack, the system would send a small but powerful laser to jam a heat-seeking missile and disrupt the weapon's guidance. "This all happens within two to three seconds," said Pledger. "There is no time for a human to get involved. It's all done autonomously."

The contractor built a dozen Guardian systems and tested them on 11 FedEx MD-10 planes. The evaluation program was conducted during the past 14 months at 51 airports across the continental United States. The pod can be easily installed or detached -- a media demonstration took less than 10 minutes -- and can fit civilian aircraft of all sizes. BAE has yet to unveil its laser-based infrared system, known as JETEYE.

The company is nearing completion of the third phase of the project, which includes testing the system on an American Airlines plane during a cross-country trip from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport in May or June, said BAE spokeswoman Marianne Murphy. The firm expects to complete the program by the end of the year.
Northrop and BAE indicated they would easily meet DHS' requirement that the counter-MANPADS systems cost no more than $1 million per unit, although specific prices would depend on the volume ordered.

But questions persist about who will purchase this technology and pay to install and maintain it. The airline industry, bludgeoned by skyrocketing fuel costs and a hemorrhaging market because of the declining economy, has not indicated a willingness to pay for the anti-missile systems. Congress, meanwhile, has not appropriated any funding beyond the initial counter-MANPADS program to mass produce the technology.

James Pitts, president and corporate vice president of Northrop's Electronic Systems, said the units would cost only $1 per passenger on each commercial flight for the lifespan of the device -- less than the price of some onboard entertainment systems.

There are about 4,000 commercial airliners in service at any given time across the country, Pledger said. But equipping the country's entire commercial fleet would likely require significantly fewer units, he added, since the counter-MANPADS devices can be interchanged from one plane to another. More pressing, Pledger said, is to install the devices on commercial planes that fly overseas to dangerous locations that do not maintain vigilant air defense systems.

DHS also is conducting a suitability study on several missile defense systems that would not be mounted on planes. Northrop is working on a ground-based system that would fire a laser to divert missiles, while Raytheon Co.'s Vigilant Eagle uses airport towers to fire high-power microwave beams at a missile.

In 2004, the Government Accountability Office estimated that there were more than 800,000 MANPADS worldwide, and at least two dozen terrorist groups were known to have the weapons.

While Northrop officials would not discuss specifics of how the devices have worked in combat situations, they cited media reports that a British C-17 aircraft had used the system to divert a potential strike from three heat-seeking missiles. "Let's just say people have come home," said David Denton, Northrop's director of infrared countermeasures commercial programs. "It has definitely worked."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0308/032608rb1.htm