– Concern over returning fighters –
On Wednesday, US officials had publicly demanded enhanced security for airports in Europe and the Middle East with direct US flights to the United States.
They did not confirm whether they had intelligence about a specific plot, but their actions suggested alarm.
The request was “based on real-time intelligence,” according to a Homeland Security Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Western intelligence services say that hundreds of militants travelling from Europe to fight in the Middle East could pose a security risk on their return. Most European passport-holders do not need a visa to travel to the United States.
Of particular concern is Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based branch of the terror network founded by the late Osama bin Laden.
US and other intelligence services say AQAP is passing on sophisticated bombmaking expertise to militants fighting in Syria for use against Western targets — most prominently, passenger aircraft.
AQAP “is always the group we think about when we talk about undetectable bombs,” a US intelligence official told AFP on Friday.
France announced it was boosting passenger screening at its airports, responding to a request from Washington.
The French move, due to come into force Monday and Tuesday, follows similar action already implemented by Britain, and notably impacts Europe’s two busiest hubs, Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle.
Passengers in Britain have long faced tight security measures at airports following high-profile threats, including a failed attempt by British “shoe bomber” Richard Reid to blow up a US-bound flight in 2001.
Experts say that if anyone could be behind the threat of a new generation of bombs, it was Ibrahim al-Asiri, a 32-year-old Saudi believed to be hiding out with AQAP in Yemen’s restive southern provinces.
A previous high-profile attempt by AQAP to blow up a US-bound plane failed on December 25, 2009, when Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear.
The Detroit “underwear bomber” is now serving a life sentence in the United States.
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