A REAL BODY BLOW

Remember the international panic when a terrorist plot was busted in London with suicide bombers planning to blow up half a dozen passenger jets over the Atlantic with bomb ingredients smuggled on board in drink bottles? They planned to mix their deadly concoctions in the plane toilets. Overnight passengers were banned from taking on board drink bottles, perfume bottles, moisturizers, medication and even baby formula, in their hand luggage.

Those restrictions still apply on most international flights and domestic flights in some countries.

Since then major airports have also been testing full body x-rays because plastics have been eluding the metal detector scanners.

Well, security could get even tighter and boarding queues even longer with every passenger being x-rayed.

This is because of a new bizarre tactic used by a suicide bomber in the Middle East several weeks ago when an al-Qaeda operative got within metres of a sheik in Saudi Arabia before blowing himself up.

The attempted assassination left people wondering how one of the most wanted al-Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia could get so close to Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, the man in charge of counter-terrorism, that he was able to blow himself up in the same room.

According to the BBC, Western forensic investigators think they have the answer, and it has scared the wits out of them. They believe the bomb was detonated by someone else from a mobile phone.

And where was the bomb? The killer was carrying it internally. He had had it surgically implanted. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. And I must admit I thought it was a hoax because, apart from that brief BBC story at the weekend, there have been no media reports. No newspaper headlines.

Peter Neuman, from Kings College in London says ‘if it really is true that the metal detectors couldn't detect this person's hidden explosive device, that would mean that the metal detectors as they currently exist in airports are pretty much useless.’

The implications for airport security –or lack of it – are enormous. Methinks travel just got even more complicated and even more dangerous.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009