Former Israeli Intel Operatives Run Security at Brussels Airport

sott.net

The aviation and general security services firm ICTS handles security operations at Brussels airport, the scene of a bomb attack yesterday morning.

ICTS was established in 1982 by former members of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency and El Al airline security agents, and has a major presence around the world in airport security including operations in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Japan and Russia. ICTS uses the security system employed in Israel, whereby passengers are profiled to assess the degree to which they pose a potential threat on the basis of a number of indicators, including age, name, origin and behavior during questioning.

Chairman of the Supervisory Board at ICTS is Menachem J. Atzmon. Atzmon is a former Likud party member who was indicted and convicted in 1996 in a fraud and embezzlement case relating to the misappropriation of funds raised by charities. Atzmon is also the CEO of the port authority of Rostock in Germany.

This will not, however, be the first time that ICTS has come under scrutiny for possible security lapses leading to a 'Muslim terror attack'.

As the provider of security services to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport and United Airlines and US Airways, the firm's security system was criticized for somehow allowing erstwhile 'underwear bomber', Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to "slip through" and board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit with explosive materials on Christmas day 2009.

The Christmas knicker bomber, as he came to be known, was not your usual disgruntled Arab or lowly Muslim acolyte. He was the son of Nigerian banking mogul and former Nigerian government minister Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, one of the richest men in Africa. We're talking one of the African colonial elite here, an African version of the British 'old boy's network'. While in London, his son, the knicker bomber, lived in a ₤4 million apartment in Mansfield Street, in the city's West End. He also enjoyed access to visas for several different countries, including the US.

Unlike most alleged Muslim terrorists, who usually bring their passports to the scene of their 'suicide attacks' (and often leave them there for police to find), Abdulmutallab apparently arrived at Schiphol airport to board his flight to the US with a one-way ticket, no luggage and without a passport.

Now usually this would have spelled a premature end to his planned attack, but according to Detroit attorney and eyewitness to events at Schiphol Kurt Haskell, Abdulmutallab benefited from the help of a sharply dressed Indian man who was able to escort the youngster to the boarding gate where he told the attendant that Abdulmutallab had no passport but should be allowed on the flight anyway. When the sharply dressed man was told that he would have to speak to the security manager, he did so and successfully planted the knicker bomber on the plane.