"Checks find flaws in UK airport security"

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Checks find flaws in airport security
United Kingdom - The Birmingham Post


Aviation security analysts last night said increased security around
Heathrow airport showed there was a real and possible threat to aircraft
from shoulder-launched missiles.

Chris Yates, aviation security editor at the publication Jane's Transport,
said there was already a precedent for targeting planes, including IRA
mortar attacks at Heathrow in 1994 and the most recent in Kenya last year.

Two missiles were fired at an Arkias airline charter flight carrying Israeli
tourists soon after it took off from Mombasa bound for Tel Aviv in November.

In a simultaneous attack, 13 people were killed, including three Israelis,
when suicide bombers blew themselves up at a nearby hotel.

Both the attacks were linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist
network.

Mr Yates said: 'As far as the threat is concerned, we saw that very mode
used to attempt to bring down an airliner was very real and very possible.'

He added: 'These weapons can be brought into the UK very easily. A report by
the UK Government published last year suggested that a lot of our smaller
airfields were wide open to smuggling.

'A light aircraft can touch down on an unmanned airfield or even a field in
the south of the UK, goods are off-loaded and spirited away to wherever for
whatever purpose.

'There's a very real issue for this sort of thing. It does rather beg the
question whether we are getting it wrong at that level.'

In other attacks, a Russian-built Mark 22 anti-tank weapon was used to
damage the MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross, south London, on September 20,
2000.

The weapon was found in a park and the attack blamed on dissident Irish
Republicans.


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