London, Mar. 24 (ANI): Al Qaeda is laying deadly “booby traps” by equipping its female suicide bombers with explosive breast implants that are impossible to be detected at airport security checkpoints, British intelligence agency, MI5, has claimed.
“Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaeda are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery,” The Sun quoted Terrorist expert Joseph Farah, as saying.
The lethal explosives called PETN are inserted inside plastic shapes during the operation, before the breast is then sewn up, he added.
According to MI5, Al Qaeda doctors have been trained at some of Britain”s leading teaching hospitals before returning to their own countries to perform the surgical procedures.
The intelligence agency has also discovered that extremists are inserting the explosives into the buttocks of some male suicide bombers.
Top surgeons have confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.
“Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines,” one surgeon said.
“You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner,” he added.
A sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN could blow “a considerable hole” in an airline”s skin, causing it to crash, experts say.
Hours after London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s Christmas Day flight bombing bid, MI5 began to pick up “chatter” emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants, the paper says.
A hand-picked team investigated the threat which was described as “one that can circumvent our defence,” it adds. (ANI)
Airport guard used scanner to ogle colleague
A security worker at London’s Heathrow Airport has received a police warning and faces disciplinary action over claims he ogled a female colleague using a full-body scanner, officials said.
The 25-year-old worker made lewd comments after his colleague Jo Margetson, 29, mistakenly strayed into the scanner which can see through clothes to produce an image of the body, the Sun newspaper reported.
The case is believed to be the first of its kind since the full-body scanners were rushed into service at a number of British airports in the wake of an attempt by a suspected Muslim extremist to blow up a plane bound for Detroit on December 25.
They are now being rolled out at airports across the world.
Details of the incident at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 on March 10 emerged on the day lawmakers said concerns that the scanners were intrusive had been overblown.
Ms Margetson told the Sun she had been “traumatised” by what had happened and had informed police and her bosses at the airport’s operator, BAA.
“We treat any allegations of inappropriate behaviour or misuse of security equipment very seriously and these claims are being investigated thoroughly,” said a spokeswoman for BAA.
“If found to be substantiated, we will take appropriate action.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said officers had been informed of the allegation and “a first instance harassment warning has been issued to a 25-year-old man”.
Opponents of scanners argue they risk breaching a person’s right to privacy.
Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission has already said they might be breaking discrimination and privacy laws.
“For every official caught ogling like this, there are plenty more eyeing up law-abiding travellers,” Alex Deane, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group, said.
“These expensive machines are totally disproportionate.”
The government says staff using the machines are properly supervised and would not be able to see the person being scanned. All images are deleted.
- Reuters