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Screening test: are al qaeda's airline bombing attempts becomingmore sophisticated? by wgre ethbtn
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Screening test: are al qaeda's airline bombing attempts becomingmore sophisticated? by WGRE ETHBTN
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| Article Posted: 10/25/2012 |
| Article Views: 48 |
| Articles Written: 1205 - MORE ARTICLES FROM THIS AUTHOR |
| Word Count: 872 |
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Screening test: are al qaeda's airline bombing attempts becomingmore sophisticated? |
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The CIA, working with counterparts in the Middle East, earlier thisweek halted the latest al Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb aircraftbound for the U.S. The planned attack, which would have come fromexplosives worn under a passenger's clothing, is reminiscent of theso-called underwear bomb worn by an al Qaeda operative in the failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bring down aDetroit-bound passenger airliner on Christmas Day 2009 . The latest underwear bomb found through the covert CIA operationis thought to be the work of Ibrahim Hassan al Asiri , who designed the original device. Although the plot was disrupted before a particular airline wastargeted and tickets were purchased, al Qaeda's continued attemptsto attack the U.S.
speak to the organization's persistence andwillingness to refine specific approaches to killing. UnlikeAbdulmutallab's bomb, the new device contained lead azide , an explosive often used as a detonator . If the new underwear bomb had been used, the bomber would haveignited the lead azide, which would have triggered a more powerfulexplosive, possibly military-grade explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN). Lead azide and PETN were key components in a 2010 plan to detonate two bombs sent from Yemen and bound for Chicago—one in a cargoaircraft and the other in the cargo hold of a passenger aircraft.In that plot, al-Qaeda hid bombs in printer cartridges, allowingthem to slip past cargo handlers and airport screeners.
Both bombscontained far more explosive material than the 80 grams of PETNthat Abdulmutallab smuggled onto his Northwest Airlines flight. With the latest device, al Asiri appears to have been able toimprove on the underwear bomb supplied to Abdulmutallab, says Joan Neuhaus Schaan , a fellow in homeland security and terrorism for Rice University'sJames A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. This is just thelatest in the "very serious cat-and-mouse game" thatterrorists play with those trying to stop them. "In this particular case it's interesting to see the way theterrorists were trying to use resistance to [ Transportation Security Administration] procedures as part of an attack," Schaansays.
After Abdulmutallab's attempt a few years ago, the TSA put in place new procedures and technologies to prevent someone else from smuggling explosives on board anaircraft in their clothing. Shortly thereafter the general publictook offense to these new security methods, and the TSA was required to rethink it policy , she adds. The joint CIA–Saudi intelligence operation to stop thislatest attack, orchestrated by Yemen-based Sunni terrorist group alQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) , coincides with several other significant terrorism-relateddevelopments of the past week. In addition to the recent one-yearanniversary of former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden 's assassination by U.S.
military forces in Pakistan , a CIA drone strike earlier this week in Yemen killed AQAP head ofoperations, Fahd Mohammad Ahmed al Quso, an alleged planner of the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole . On Monday al Qaeda released a hostage tape featuring former American Peace Corps and U.S. Agency forInternational Development (USAID) official Warren Weinstein, whowas kidnapped last August in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the military trial of accused 9/11 planner Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others has begun in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Scientific American spoke with Schaan about al Qaeda's continued attempts to take downairliners traveling to the U.S., the terrorist organization's focuson exploiting cultural norms to reach their targets and the mostsuccessful approaches to stopping terrorist plots. [ An edited transcript of the interview follows. ] How significant was the discovery of this plot to blow up aU.S.-bound airliner with an improved version of an underwear bomb? It further illustrates the fact that even though we've killed Osamabin Laden, Anwar al Awlaki [a key AQAP operative who died in a September 2011 drone air strike ] and several other al Qaeda leaders, we have not stopped thethreat they pose. Why would al Qaeda be trying to develop a new underwear bomb, afterthe first attempt failed? An underpants bomb is worn under a person's clothes, just like adiaper. The people behind these plots understand not only the TSA'ssecurity procedures but how they are tolerated—or in thiscase not tolerated—by travelers in the Western world, and theterrorists used this knowledge to design their attacks.
Theplotters might not have gone back to an underpants bomb if the TSAhad continued with the more intensive screening procedures it hadin place. Although Abdulmutallab was stopped, how was he able to get as faras he did with his planned attack? Abdulmutallab began his journey in Lagos, Nigeria, on December 24,and the initial security screening would have occurred there. TheLagos airport has had a well-known reputation for lax security.PETN, [the explosive] which Abdulmutallab tried to use, is widelyavailable. It can easily be detected if checked by dog, swab or"puffer" machine, but it's hard to detect in a sealedcontainer.
In addition, passengers are most often checked only bymagnetometers. In the case of Abdulmutallab, he attempted todetonate the device by injecting a chemical into it after he hadgotten onto the airplane, but the attempt was unsuccessful. I am an expert from Mannequins & Forms, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as used lowe boats , bright steel bar.
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