Extra body checks for US-bound passengers

Full details of the new security procedures will be published on the US Embassy website, said an embassy spokesman in Riyadh. The new security arrangement will ensure that all passengers traveling to and from the 14 countries will be patted down and their carry-on luggage searched. They may undergo advanced explosives detection or imaging scans.

Passengers traveling from or through nations listed as "state sponsors of terrorism" - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria - as well as Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen will face the heightened screening. All of those, except Cuba, are Muslim-majority countries.

The new security check system came in for criticism from Saudi travel and tourism industry leaders. Nasser Al-Tayyar, chief of the Al-Tayyar Travel Group, said: "I don't support the new security check system. It will reduce air traffic between the US and Saudi Arabia. The new measures will create more difficulties for travelers to and from the Kingdom."

According to a report, passengers not flying through the 14 nations on their way to the US will no longer automatically face the full range of intensified security that was imposed after the attempted bombing of the Christmas Day flight.

According to the new security measure, pilots will have more discretionary power to insist that passengers not travel with pillows or blankets on their laps during some flights and to limit movement in the cabin during those flights.

The TSA said that it had issued security directives to all US and international airlines operating flights to the US. The directive also increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening of passengers on US-bound international flights, Kazinform cites Arab News. See www.arabnews.com for full version.