Pakistan increases screening for airline passengers heading to US

Pakistan airport security increased

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s national airline said Monday it is increasing security checks for passengers heading to the United States, following U.S. requests for enhanced screening after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to ignite explosives on a flight to Detroit.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration said people flying into the United States from countries such as Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria are to face the extra screening, which is likely to annoy passengers already facing intrusive security screening.

“It is beyond my imagination what more they could do,” said Nadim Umer, 40, a Karachi-based linen merchant who said he was subjected to a strip search when he arrived in New York last June. “Those who are dying to go to America at any cost can put up with all this inhuman behavior, but I cannot.”

A spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines said Monday the company began applying the new security standards Jan. 1 on U.S.-bound passengers.

Sultan Hasan said the passengers are subjected to special screening, including full body searches, in a designated area of the departure lounge. He said the airline had run advertisements in newspapers to warn prospective passengers of the increased safety measures.

“Passengers are subjected to the body search as per required standard set by the U.S. authorities and no passenger is allowed to carry any kind of liquid onboard,” Hasan said.

The new measures follow the arrest of a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to set off an explosive device on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.

Abdulmutallab has told U.S. investigators he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan is a key battleground in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The TSA said the ability to enforce the new security measures is the “result of extraordinary cooperation from our global aviation partners.”

Pervez George, spokesman for Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority, said the CAA was maintaining strict security standards at all the country’s airports for all flights.

“We are already carrying out all possible security arrangements at our airports which can be compared with any Western airport,” George said, adding that “safety of the airliners and passengers as well as security at the airports is a top priority and we are maintaining it irrespective where the flight is going.”

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Associated Press writer Ashraf Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.