Air security ‘totally unacceptable’
Airports will have yet tighter security, but can new rules prevent attacks?
Barack Obama, the US president, says that a systemic failure allowed the botched bombing of a Detroit-bound US plane on Friday.
Initial investigations into the foiled plot reveal a series of failings in the US security and intelligence systems. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted the attack, was known to intellegence officials, but had no restrictions on flying.
Pledging to revamp the system that he describes as “totally unacceptable,” Obama issued a batch of new rules and regulations to reinforece air security.
But Janet Napolitano, who is in charge of homeland security, said that the attemped attack showed that the system worked.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which includes the merged Saudi and Yemeni branches of the group, has claimed responsibility for the attempt.
To prevent the group and others from boarding aeroplanes with concealed weapons, invasive new screening technologies have been proposed.
So how would these rules prevent new attacks? And is the so-called ‘war on terror’ taking a new turn?
Inside Story presenter Hoda Abdelhamid discusses with Roger King, an airline and financial analyst with the credit researcher, Creditsights, Scott Lott, of the International Aviation Transport Industry, and Simon Tisdall, an assistant editor of The Guardian newspaper.
This episode of Inside Story aired from Wednesday, December 30.