Saudi bombing incident to usher a more bothersome airport frisking

Saudi bombing incident to usher a more bothersome airport frisking
Shashank Shekhar
If removing your shoes and the belt at security checkpoints bothered you, wait till the frisks become more intimate.
The attempt to murder Prince Mohamed bin Nayef in Saudi Arabia has left several questions unanswered besides opening a pandora box of security concerns. The incident showed that human bombs can evade airport frisking repeatedly and reach the most secured of establishments thus raising security questions which will sooner or later result into a tighter security at the airports especially in the Middle East.
The kingdom has been quiet on Abdullah al Asiri the Saudi bomber who “gave himself up”, and even the best known analysts on Middle East have not been able to sketch out the exact details of the incident.
Whatever information the world has about the incident has come from the Saudi press agencies. And several questions still remain unanswered. Theodore Karasik, the Director (Research) at Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) enumerated them down on being asked.
“How could Abdullah penetrate though so many layers of security? Was the device really hidden inside his body? Is Al Qaeda adopting drug smuggling techniques to deliver a bomb? How was it triggered?” Karasik asked almost in a breadth.
The second question among the ones enumerated is perhaps the most important considering that if the bomb could evade security checks because it was brought in inserted in a human body (as banned drugs are still sneeked in), it would make the entire security check procedure prevalent across the world a joke. “This incident may make travel even more miserable for people who were critical of being asked to remove their shoes during security checks,” Karasik said.
The incident was a brutal reminder of a similar incident in 1975 when King Faisal was killed by his own cousin during such a gathering.
Prince Nayef had been spearheading the efforts to win back Saudis who had strayed into extremist organisations particularly Al Qaeda. Nayef ensured individual attention to each of the returnee and had been recognised the world over for his job. Karasik says that this precisely was the reason for the Prince emerging as the target of the top Al Qaeda leadership. “They wanted to show that his programme for rehabilitation is a failure,” Karasik said. That the attacker had been flown in from Yemen also showed the deep roots that Al Qaeda has been able to establish in the war torn country.
The attack came after two important incidents. A fortnight earlier, on August 19, the Saudi authorities announced the arrest of 44 suspected militants with Al Qaeda ties following a year-long operation that also uncovered dozens of machine-guns and electronic circuits that could be used to trigger explosions.
In what was the country’s first trial for terrorists, in July a Saudi Court a Saudi court sentenced one militant to death and 329 to prison. Among other punishments, it also imposed fines and travel bans. Human rights groups have condemned the way the suspects were held for long periods without any serious charges leveled against them.