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WASHINGTON: The Obama administration is pushing for increased security precautions at European airports because of concerns that Al-Qaeda operatives in Syria and Yemen have teamed up to develop bombs that can be smuggled onto planes, US officials said.
The US government is in discussions with European authorities on measures that could include extra scrutiny of US-bound passengers’ electronics and footwear, and installation of additional bomb-detection machines, according to law-enforcement and security officials. An announcement is expected within days.
Bombmakers from the Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, and Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are believed to be working together to try to develop explosives that could avoid detection by current airport screening systems, US national security sources said.
The main concern is that militant groups could try to blow up US or Europe-bound planes by concealing bombs on foreign fighters carrying Western passports who spent time with radical rebel factions in the region, the sources said.
AQAP already has a track record for plotting such attacks. It was behind a failed 2009 attempt by a militant with a bomb hidden in his underwear to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.
US officials believe Nusra and AQAP operatives have carried out operational testing of new bomb designs in Syria, where Nusra is one of the main groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad, a national security source said.
The “stealth” explosives the bombmakers are trying to design include non-metallic bombs, ABC News reported.
There was no immediate indication that US intelligence has detected a specific plot or timeframe for carrying out such an attack.
But officials are especially worried that the recent battlefield successes of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an Al-Qaeda splinter group, have drawn a growing number of militants from America and Europe to the jihadist cause and they would have easy access to flights headed for US cities.
Still, the Obama administration has been cautious in its response.
Negotiations for beefed-up security with European governments have taken place behind the scenes, apparently to avoid raising alarm among air travelers and to minimize diplomatic fallout. US officials said some measures under discussion will remain secret.