Security tightened at major airports world after Brussels blasts

Brussels had no alarm, but it became one for many other international hot-spots across the globe.

Following the twin explosions at Brussels Airport on Tuesday in which more than 30 were killed, several countries have tightened or reviewed airport security.

While many world leaders condemned the bombings and expressed their solidarity with Belgium, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday blamed Europe’s porous borders and lax security for the attack.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bomb attacks in the departure hall of Zaventem airport, and a rush-hour metro train, killing more than 30.

Prosecutors said the blasts at the airport, which serves more than 23 million passengers a year, were believed to be caused by suicide bombers.

Turnbull waded into the global debate about protecting borders, reassuring Australians that “our domestic security arrangements are much stronger than they are in Europe where regrettably they allowed things to slip”.

“That weakness in European security is not unrelated to the problems they’ve been having in recent times,” he said in Sydney.

“Two terrorists who enter the terminal area with explosive devices, this is undoubtedly a colossal failure,” Pini Schiff, the former security chief at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport and currently the CEO of the Israel Security Association, said in an interview with Israel



Radio.

In the United States, the country’s largest cities were placed on high alert and the National Guard was called in to increase security at New York City’s two airports.

A United Nations agency was already reviewing airport security following the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt by a makeshift soda-can bomb in October last year. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for smuggling the bomb on board.

The relative openness of public airport areas in Western Europe contrasts with some in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where travellers’ documents and belongings are checked before they are allowed to enter the airport building.

In Turkey, passengers and bags are screened on entering the terminal and again after check-in. Moscow also checks people at terminal entrances.

Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport is known for its tough security, including passenger profiling to identify those viewed as suspicious, bomb sniffing devices and questioning of each individual traveller.

Large numbers of uniformed police officers and National Guard troops dressed in battle fatigues and carrying rifles patrolled New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport. Several US carriers - Delta Air Lines Inc, United Continental Holdings Inc and American Airlines Group Inc - said they cancelled or rerouted flights as a result of the Brussels attacks.

At mid afternoon, authorities at the Denver airport evacuated two levels on the west side of the main terminal after several packages that appeared suspicious were spotted near ticket counters, airport spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said.