From Yemen with Love

Once again we have had a narrow escape. Two bombs, hidden in UPS cargo were – latest reports indicate – primed to explode. In these early stages of investigation, it seems that thanks should be directed towards Saudi, British and US intelligence units.

David Cameron – speaking about the bomb discovered at East Midlands Airport – claimed that because the flight containing the package took off from Yemen, landed Germany and the UK with the US as its final destination, this demonstrated how united we have to be to defeat terrorism. Well yes, this is an obvious statement but I am more concerned about the fact that the device was not detected in any of the first two countries and only found in the UK after a tip off.

Cargo planes have been identified for some time as the Achilles heal of aviation transport. Less than 5% of freight is scanned by x-ray machines and questions constantly persist about the reliability of airside staff. It appears that terrorists have found a new method of attack, proving that they continue to explore new avenues of attack.

One of the bomb components – PETN – as well as the origin of the device, indicates that the driving force behind these latest incidents is likely to be Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP). Yemen is the birthplace of Al-Qaeda, ancestral home of Osama bin Laden and AQAP is widely recognised as the terrorist organisation’s best franchise.

We can not win in the fight against terrorism by intervening at the very last minute as we will not succeed every time. We need a multi-layered approach of physical security right through to good intelligence obtained on the ground and electronically – the fight has to be taken to the front line whether that is Saana, Somalia or Saltford.

But as a final note, I’d like to mention two men who both made public statements this week – one illustrated brilliant timing and the other quite the opposite; Sir John Sawers became the first head of MI6 (the UK’s international intelligence arm) ever to speak publicly. One of the things he mentioned was that Yemen now posed a particular threat to our security. The second was Sir Martin Broughton, the British Airways chairman (better known for his handling of the recent Liverpool FC sale). He chose this week to criticize airport security measures as being too stringent.

I choose to listen to MI6 thank you.

Ecrivain Man