Federal officials are planning to boost security for US-bound flights after disturbing new intelligence reports indicated that terrorists are trying to up their game with new, undetectable explosives.
In the next few weeks, the Obama administration will increase random screenings, ramp up inspections of electronics and install explosives detectors at overseas airports.
Among new checks on passengers boarding US-bound flights will be a “series of secret actions the public would never see,” according to ABC News. There will even be a rededicated effort to inspect shoes.
New terror chatter is making security officials worried that militant groups may have developed nonmetallic explosive devices that would not be detected by current technology, a source told ABC News.
Officials fear that plotters holding US or European passports could board planes bound for America and blow them up.
New intelligence can’t identify a time line for a potential attack, but the network said the new threats are “different and more disturbing than past aviation plots.”
The Department of Homeland Security has been keeping a close watch on the escalating violence in the Middle East that threatens Americans’ safety both domestically and abroad.
An extreme faction of terrorist groups in Syria and an ever-growing al Qaeda faction in Yemen prompted US agencies including DHS and the FBI to consider expanding airport security protocols.
Officials are particularly concerned about the radical al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Al Nusrah Front, which planned the failed 2009 underwear bombing on a Detroit-bound plane.