"Airport Defense the Ultimate Nightmare -Experts"

Wednesday,  February 12, 2003

Airport Defense the Ultimate Nightmare -Experts
By Paul Majendie


LONDON (Reuters) - From suicide car bombs to surface-to-air missiles,
defending a civil airport from attack is the ultimate security nightmare,
defense and terrorism experts said Wednesday.

And British security forces, their skills well honed in a 30-year guerrilla
war against the Irish Republican Army, now face what could be a much
deadlier foe -- al Qaeda extremists only too ready to die for their cause.

Britain has brought in the army at Heathrow, one of the world's busiest
airports, amid intelligence-led fears that al Qaeda may be planning a rocket
attack.

Hundreds of troops in armored vehicles were drafted in while police stopped
and searched cars on roads that ran beneath the flight paths into Heathrow.

London's main airport, with its long perimeter, large number of flights and
huge publicity value for an attacker has long been an obvious target.

But just how far can a democracy go in defending its citizens from an unseen
foe?

"We cannot prevent everything every time," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism
expert at the University of St. Andrews. "On the outside of an airport, it
is very difficult."

Tim Ripley, an international security expert at Lancaster University,
agreed.

"If you can get your missile into the right place and it works, a plane is
pretty much a sitting duck," he said.

"Airliners are designed to give out more heat from their engines than
fighters and are therefore much more vulnerable."

But he argued that the vastly increased security presence at Heathrow would
certainly act as a deterrent. "To get yourself into position to fire the
missile, you have to expose yourself, you have to go out in the open," he
said.

However he warned: "Any western city is by definition undefendable if you
follow the logic of suicide bombers. You cannot put roadblocks on every
street corner unless you want to introduce a police state."

Suicide bombers could deal devastating blows to an airport thronged every
day with thousands of passengers.

"I don't believe the threat is only from surface-to-air missiles," said
Colonel Christopher Langton at the International Institute for Strategic
Studies.

"The scope for mass casualties is immense. It is an easier thing to do than
the more sensational surface-to-air missile attack," he said.

And Britain is dealing with a very different foe this time.

He said the IRA were prepared to take fewer risks and were not so fanatical.

"They were cool, professional and military in their approach whereas al
Qaeda have this fanaticism which is picked up by people in communities
across the world who can be triggered quite easily and at short notice.

"But they probably lack the professionalism of the IRA which we can be
thankful for."

Nine years ago the IRA launched mortar bombs from outside the perimeter onto
the airport runways. They failed to explode.

Defense analyst Francis Tusa said: "The biggest difference between this and
the threat from the IRA is that the IRA tended to want to get away. They (al
Qaeda) don't give a damn whether they are caught or not."

He said there is certainly no difficulty in getting hold of the missiles
they need -- even if some, like those used on last November's attack on an
Israeli airliner taking off from Mombasa in Kenya, may be antiquated.

"You have to bear in mind how many were delivered to Afghanistan in the
Eighties," he said. "The worry is if they have the more modern version."

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