Britain reviews screening, security after Detroit attack

Britain said yesterday it was reviewing airport security and passenger screening procedures after a Nigerian who had studied in Britain was charged over last week's failed plot to bomb a US passenger jet.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain was working closely with the US and other countries to improve information sharing on potential terrorism suspects.

In cooperation with the US, Britain would examine new techniques to enhance airport security, such as full-body scanners and explosive trace and advanced x-ray technology, Brown said in an article for a government website.

The Netherlands and Nigeria have already said they will use full-body scanners at airports.

"Al Qaeda and their associates continue in their ambition to indoctrinate thousands of young people around the world with a deadly desire to kill and maim," Brown said. US President Barack Obama has blamed "human and systemic failures" for allowing the botched Christmas Day attack aboard a Detroit-bound airliner, saying information available to intelligence experts should have been pieced together.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old suspect who says he was trained by al Qaeda in Yemen, is accused of trying to ignite explosives sewn inside his underwear on Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam as it approached Detroit.

Mr Abdulmutallab studied engineering at University College London (UCL) from 2005 to 2008, becoming president of the student Islamic Society. The failed attack has raised questions about whether he was radicalised in Britain and has led some US critics to say British security forces have not done enough to counter Islamic militancy. The New York Times said this week that, if Mr Abdulmutallab was radicalised in Britain, it would show that Britain, a close US ally, "poses a major threat to American security".

Mr Brown said Britain was "increasingly clear that he (Abdulmutallab) linked up with al Qaeda in Yemen after leaving London". Nevertheless, he said, "we... need to remain vigilant against people being radicalised here as well as abroad".

Yemen, "as both an incubator and potential safe haven for terrorism", presented a regional and global threat, Mr Brown said.

UCL has set up an independent review of Mr Abdulmutallab's time at the university.

Britain refused Mr Abdulmutallab a further student visa in May and put him on an immigration watch list after he applied to attend a bogus college.