A top terrorist told an investigative journalist on Friday that Western airports have been compromised by the Islamic State group.
Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, a senior official in the Gaza Strip’s Salafist movement, told Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief that ISIS has successfully infiltrated U.S. airports. The comments were made to Aaron Klein and will air on his radio program this Sunday on New York’s AM 970.
“The Islamic State is a state. The Islamic State has agents all around the very sensitive facilities in the world, like metro stations, like airports and other places whether in the West or in the Arab world. We have our mujahedeen implanted in those facilities as workers, as employees, even in the security field in the airports,” al-Ansari said, Breitbart reported.
The terrorist’s claims come just three days after an ISIS attack in Brussels, Belgium, killed 34 people and wounded over 300 others inside a subway system and its international airport. Al-Ansari said the downing of a Russian jet in Egypt’s Sinai Desert on Oct. 31 should convince skeptics that he is not lying.
“This is a state. This state will not disappear. It will only become bigger because this is the message. This is the prophecy of Muhammad and this is the promise of Allah,” al-Ansari added.
WND spoke with Risk management expert Vernon L. Grose on Nov. 23, 2015, who warned that U.S. airport security is woefully lacking 14 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“The crew can be infiltrated. Luggage handlers, the people who prepare the food or those who service the lavatories – the number of people with full access who could do us harm is shocking. Anyone can smuggle in a device. It’s a wide-open gate if they want to come in,” said Grose, the chairman of Omega Systems Group Inc., and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board.
A report by Homeland Security last June backed up Grose’s analysis.
“[Transportation Security Administration] had less effective controls in place for ensuring that aviation workers 1.) had not committed crimes that would disqualify them from having unescorted access to secure airport areas, and 2.) had lawful status and were authorized to work in the United States,” the report read. “In general, TSA relied on airport operators to perform criminal history and work authorization checks, but had limited oversight over these commercial entities. Thus, TSA lacked assurance that it properly vetted all credential applicants.”
The report also found that thousands of records had potentially incomplete or inaccurate data, such as an initial for a first name and missing social security numbers.
An ominous sign of U.S. airport security came in conjunction with the Brussels massacre. TSA missed a mandated deadline on Tuesday to answer whether U.S. airports are equipped to respond to a similar attack, Politico reported.
TSA refused to give the website details regarding when the report will be submitted. Staffers for House lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, said TSA failed to give them details as well.
“Our big concerns are an active shooter, foreign fighter, or a suicide bomb threat – that’s what we saw in Paris, and that’s what we saw in Belgium today,”House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told the website.