Aviation still a major target for terrorists

The United States is likely to keep a high threat designation for the airline industry because militants still see air travel as a target, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff said. Chertoff said the orange, or high, threat level assigned to the airline sector — one level higher than the overall alert level for the United States — was based on a general assessment rather than a specific threat. “We’ve seen again and again interest in this sector,” he said, pointing to an alleged British-based plot to blow up transatlantic flights using liquid explosives in 2006 and an attempted car bomb attack on Glasgow airport last year. So people think of aviation not only in terms of the aircraft but the whole infrastructure including the airports,” Chertoff said last week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Chertoff last week warned that one of the biggest threats to U.S. security could come from Europe, and added that European counterterrorism authorities acknowledge their countries “are both a target and a platform” for militants. Over the last year, however, he and his European counterparts had broadly agreed on what measures needed to be put in place including exchange of information about potential attackers and greater border security. In an effort to stem militant recruitment, they had sought to understand the process of radicalization which could lead towards militancy, Chertoff said. Highlighting one perceived difference between the United States and Europe, Chertoff said Muslims in the United States were well integrated into society. “I don’t think there is a perception that they are marginalized and we want to make sure they don’t feel marginalized,” he said.. He also said U.S. authorities were paying particular attention to the potential for militant recruiting inside jails. “Prisons are always a fertile area for recruitment of all extreme groups, whatever the ideology,” Chertoff said.