By:Associated PressThe U.S. government has told overseas airlines that fly into the country that foreign terrorists have discussed the possibility of surgically implanting explosive devices into air travelers, NBC's Pete Williams reports.
There is no indication of a plot at the moment, according to an official familiar with the intelligence. Instead, terrorists are considering how devices or components could be implanted in passengers flying into the U.S. from abroad.
The intelligence means that fliers will likely encounter heightened security at the airport, including more pat-downs, bag screening, explosives detection and passenger questioning.
In a statement issued to NBC News, the Transportation Security Administration said the agency "recently briefed air carriers and foreign partners to provide greater insights into recent intelligence indicating the continued interest of terrorists to target aviation.
"As a precaution, passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same activity at every international airport."
The full-body backscatter scanners, which have been increasingly used since the underwear bomber’s attempt to blow up a flight on Christmas Day 2009, do not detect explosive devices beneath the skin. “The Secure 1000 is designed to detect threats on the body, not in the body,” Peter Kant, vice president of Rapiscan Systems, told msnbc.com. TSA operates 247 backscatter machines in airports across the U.S., all of them manufactured by Rapiscan.
Nick Kimball, a spokesperson for the TSA, would not comment specifically on whether or not metal detectors or scanners would detect surgically implanted devices. “We can’t get into the specific detection capabilities of a particular piece of technology because we don’t want to provide a road map to terrorists,” he said.
Kimball said that the TSA’s approach of using different types of security, including everything from canine checks to explosives detection to air marshals, gives us “the best chance to detect a threat before it can be carried out.”
Aviation continues to be a special target for terrorists, and evidence from Osama bin Laden's compound showed that the al-Qaida leader retained his fascination with attacking airplanes until his death in May.
Last year, it was reported that British officials uncovered intelligence that al-Qaida was seeking to surgically implant bombs inside people, a move some believed was prompted by the use of full-body imaging machines at major airports around the world.
"This is something we've been concerned about for quite some time," said J. Bennet Waters, a security consultant with the Washington, D.C.-based Chertoff Group and a former Transportation Security Administration official in the Bush administration.
The U.S. government has been working with foreign air carriers and governments to identify ways to discover hidden explosives, including bombs potentially hidden inside of humans. Officials did not want to discuss specific security measures under consideration so as not to tip off terrorists who could seek ways to get around them.
Once a terrorist finds a willing suicide bomber, secures the explosive material and makes the bomb, carrying off this tactic is not that difficult, said Chris Ronay, a former chief of the FBI explosives unit.
"It's rather easy and the damage could be rather severe," Ronay said.
Surgery to implant explosives could be done a couple of days before a planned attack, said James Crippin, an explosives expert in Colorado. In order for it to work, there would need to be a detonation device, and it's conceivable that if the explosive was implanted in a woman's breast, the detonator could be underneath the breast so that all the operative would have to do is press downward, Crippin said.
But Jimmie C. Oxley, a chemistry professor at the University of Rhode Island and explosives expert, said it would be tough to carry out such an effort successfully. She said there are only so many places to hide a bomb in the body, and a suicide bomber would have to recover enough from the surgery to travel and set off the device
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