Parliament has already decided the combat mission, involving about 2,500 troops centred around Kandahar, will end in 2011. The Department of National Defence has started preparing plans to bring the soldiers home.

But at various times over the past two years since that decision was made, there has been some discussion about using Canadian Forces personnel in a non-combat capacity or to station soldiers in a more peaceful part of the country.

Harper ruled out such a possibility.

“We will not be undertaking any kind of activity that requires a significant military force protection, so it will become a strictly civilian mission.

“We will continue to maintain humanitarian and development missions, as well as important diplomatic activity in Afghanistan. But we will not be undertaking any activities that require any kind of military presence, other than the odd guard guarding an embassy.”

Harper also said Canada and its NATO allies have lowered their objectives for the mission in Afghanistan.

“I think the reality is that all actors over the past few years have been downgrading their expectations of what can be achieved in Afghanistan,” Harper said.

“But it is still important that we have a viable, functioning state in Afghanistan that has some acceptable democratic and rule of law norms. If we don’t, we run the serious risk of returning in Afghanistan to what we had before. No matter what differences people have on the mission, everybody agrees that the mission has the purpose to ensure that Afghanistan does not return to being a failed state that is an incubator of terrorism.”

Since Canada established its military presence in Afghanistan in 2002, 138 soldiers have died there. Most recently, on Dec. 30, four soldiers and a journalist — the Calgary Herald’s Michelle Lang — died when their armoured vehicle hit an improvised explosive device four kilometres south of Kandahar city.

The mission has also claimed the lives of a Canadian diplomat and two aid workers.

Harper said there are still outstanding questions to be resolved about the role and purpose of Canadian aid officials and Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan after 2011.

“We have been working on those answers but the bottom line is that the military mission will end in 2011,” said the prime minister.

Harper also doused speculation he’s gunning for a general election soon.

“I have no desire to have a spring election and I don’t think anybody does. I certainly don’t think the public does,” he said.

Harper has made those kinds of statements before, though. In the fall of 2008, he went against the spirit of his own fixed election date law and asked Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean to dissolve Parliament, saying that the opposition parties were blocking any advance of his government’s agenda.

But when asked to assure Canadians that, so long as this spring’s budget gets the support of the House of Commons, he would not force an election, Harper said neither his party nor, he believes, the opposition parties want a campaign this spring.

“Canadians have given us a mandate — it is a minority mandate –we know we have to work in that context and we will continue to try to do so,” Harper said.

Parliament stands prorogued, or suspended, until March 3, when MPs will be recalled to hear a speech from the throne — Harper’s fifth since taking office in 2006 — which will be followed the next day by a federal budget.

The Commons votes on both the throne speech and the budget. The budget vote is always a matter of confidence and the vote on the speech from the throne is usually a matter of confidence as well. If the government loses a confidence vote at any time, a general election is the result. If not, the next fixed date for a federal election is in the fall of 2012.

Harper said both the budget and the throne speech will demonstrate his government’s commitment to follow through on the second and final year of its economic action plan, spending billions more to fight the lingering effects of the recession.

But he said both documents will also lay out some of the things his government will aim to do next year, once the stimulus spending plan is over, to deal with a significant budgetary deficit.

“We do have to cast our minds in terms of the economy, in terms of our budget, to tackling the deficit,” Harper said. “That will obviously be the next phase to ensure that the extraordinary measures we’ve had to undertake don’t result in a permanent deficits. Our focus will start to be on exit strategies from the extraordinary fiscal measures we’ve undertaken.”

The deficit this year will top $55 billion and is forecast at more than $45 billion for the fiscal year ending March 30, 2011.

Asked if he will announce new spending restraint programs in this budget, Harper declined to speculate, but said he had given each of his ministers new “comprehensive mandate letters” over the Christmas break instructing each to re-examine their priorities given the fact that resources will be limited.

“We’ll be talking about . . . how to continue to advance key economic priorities in a period of constrained spending growth which we will need to see in the next few years,” Harper said. “We still have to be able to advance key files that will continue to build the strength of the Canadian economy.”

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2. RCMP tries to figure out post-2011 Afghan role
3. Military studies what to keep, toss out, as pullout approaches

In a routine check of passengers scheduled to arrive in the country, Customs and Border Protection officers discovered Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was in a federal database of people who may have ties to terrorists and decided to interview him before allowing him admission to the U.S., the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

Still, Abdulmutallab wasn’t on the terrorist watch list or among the individuals the U.S. bars from flying, which is why he wasn’t stopped before he got on the Northwest airlines plane in Amsterdam on Dec. 25, the official said.

The failure to put Abdulmutallab on the “no-fly” list even though other information about him was known to intelligence agencies is one of the missteps President Barack Obama said resulted in authorities not detecting the 23-year-old as a threat.

The administration plans to release a preliminary report today prepared by Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about the government’s mistakes in the case. Obama has promised changes in security and intelligence procedures and he is scheduled to make a statement on the attempted bombing at 3 p.m. Washington time.

The public will feel “a certain shock” when the report is made public, White House National Security Adviser James Jones said in an interview with USA Today.

Integrating Intelligence

Obama has said everyone on his security team has “taken responsibility” for the failure to “integrate and understand” the available intelligence. No one has resigned or been fired so far.

“I don’t know what the final outcome in terms of hiring and firing will be,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said yesterday. He said he didn’t expect any personnel changes today.

“This was a screw up that could have been disastrous,” Obama said during a Jan. 5 meeting in the White House situation room with intelligence and national security officials, according to the administration. “We dodged a bullet but just barely.”

Abdulmutallab was indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury in Detroit on six counts, including attempted murder. Authorities said he tried to destroy the plane carrying 290 people by using chemicals hidden under his clothing. The material failed to explode.

Collecting Information

The Central Intelligence Agency said it learned about Abdulmutallab in November when his father went to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to seek help in finding him. Obama said Jan. 5 that some parts of the U.S. intelligence community were aware that Abdulmutallab had traveled to Yemen and linked up with extremists there. Other elements of the U.S. intelligence network knew that an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Yemen was working with an individual to strike American targets, he said.

Abdulmutallab was on the government’s Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, list which has about 550,000 names of those with possible terrorist links. He hadn’t been moved to a terrorist watch list, or to the “selectee” list of about 14,000 names that triggers additional screening at airports, or to the “no-fly” list, which has about 4,000 names.

U.S. lawmakers have questioned why Abdulmutallab’s visa wasn’t revoked after he was first linked to terrorist groups.

Links to Extremists

Yemeni and U.K. officials are trading charges over where Abdulmutallab was recruited by extremists. Abdulmutallab studied engineering and business at University College London from 2005 to 2008. Obama has said Abdulmutallab was trained and equipped by an al-Qaeda group in Yemen.

Deputy Premier for Defense and Security Affairs Rashad al- Alimi said Yemen’s investigation shows he joined al-Qaeda while in London. U.K. Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the House of Commons on Jan. 5 that while “people supporting violent extremism” have tried to recruit at U.K. colleges and universities, “Abdulmutallab’s family believes he turned to violent extremism after leaving the U.K.”

In addition to ordering the report, the president said he has directed department and agency chiefs to provide specific recommendation to fix the shortcomings exposed by the attempted terrorist attack.

The U.S. also is stepping up screening of air passengers bound for America from 14 countries including Algeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, putting more explosives detection teams at airports and dispatching more air marshals on flights.

As part of the new procedures, visa information will be included in State Department warnings on people with suspected terrorist ties.

–With assistance from Roger Runningen in Washington, Caroline Alexander in London, Andrew M. Harris at the U.S. Courthouse in Detroit and Margaret Cronin Fisk in Southfield, Michigan. Editors: Joe Sobczyk, Robin Meszoly

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1. Officials Point to Suspect’s Claim of Qaeda Ties in Yemen
2. More Questions on Why Terror Suspect Was Not Stopped
3. Christmas Day Terror Suspect Charged With Attempting To Blow Up Plane

After Alan Johnson, the UK Home Secretary, announced yesterday that full-body scanners would be introduced at Heathrow Airport in about three weeks, many in the UK have grown concerned that a full-body scan of a child would break laws against child pornography. The law in question is the Protection of Children Act from 1978, which prohibits creating an indecent image or “psuedo-image” of a child.

“They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way,” said Terri Dowty of the group Action for Rights of Children. Although she admitted the child porn laws do make an exception for preventing and investigating criminal activity, it’s unclear whether broad screening by airport security personnel falls under this exception.

A spokesperson for the UK Department of Transport said he “understand[s] the concerns expressed about privacy in relation to the deployment of body scanners.”

“It is vital staff are properly trained and we are developing a code of practice to ensure these concerns are properly taken into account,” he said.

We’ll keep you posted on the legal challenges that are sure to arise in the coming weeks and months.

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1. Full body scanners may break child pornography laws
2. Airport body scanners ‘will expose personal dignity’
3. Detroit terror attack: delay over airport X-ray scanners ‘risking lives’

Janet Napolitano says the system worked. No, we were brave and lucky.

A U.S. government that has barred the phrase “war on terror” has nonetheless acknowledged that a failed Christmas day bomb attack on an airliner was a terrorist attempt. Can we all now drop the pretense that we stopped fighting a war once Dick Cheney and George W. Bush left the White House?

The attempt by 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab follows the alleged murders in Ft. Hood, Texas by Islamist-inspired Major Nidal Hasan in November. Brian Jenkins, who studies terrorism for the Rand Corporation, says there were more terror incidents (12), including thwarted plots, on U.S. soil in 2009 than in any year since 2001. The jihadists don’t seem to like Americans any better because we’re closing down Guantanamo. This increasing terror tempo makes the Obama Administration’s reflexive impulse to treat terrorists like routine criminal suspects all the more worrisome. It immediately indicted Mr. Abdulmutallab on criminal charges of trying to destroy an aircraft, despite reports that he told officials he had ties to al Qaeda and had picked up his PETN explosive in Yemen. The charges mean the Nigerian can only be interrogated like any other defendant in a criminal case, subject to having a lawyer present and his Miranda rights read.

Yet he is precisely the kind of illegal enemy combatant who should be interrogated first with the goal of preventing future attacks and learning more about terror networks rather than gaining a single conviction. We now have to hope he cooperates voluntarily.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, told CNN yesterday that “one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked.” Yet the terrorist screening system seems to have failed in at least two crucial ways: first, in failing to revoke a visa to the U.S. that Mr. Abdulmutallab had obtained last June despite a later warning to U.S. consular officials from his own father that he was becoming radicalized and might have terror network ties; and second, in not adding him to a no-fly list from a lower-level watch list.

The episode is a reminder that the fight against terrorism requires even more interagency cooperation, and Congress should investigate whether such communication was lacking in this case. No one should leap to conclusions about who is responsible for any mistakes, but Ms. Napolitano isn’t reassuring when she utters happy talk that it all “went very smoothly.” The day was saved not because of the antiterror “system” but because the explosive failed to ignite and because a Dutch passenger and flight attendants acted heroically to subdue the man, put out the fire and detach the explosive.

The lesson here is the same as Flight 93 on 9/11 and shoe-bomber Richard Reid, which is that civilians willing to act in their own self-defense are a crucial part of “homeland security.” The willingness of passengers and crew to identify potential threats seems more useful than more onerous airport screening, which only gives terrorists the satisfaction of knowing they have made air travel even more unbearable. The new rule to keep passengers in their seats in the final hour of some flights seems all too typical of arbitrary rules that inconvenience innocents but not terrorists.

On that score, the settlement reportedly won earlier this year by the so-called flying imams against a U.S. airline for knocking them off a flight in 2006 sends exactly the wrong message. The interests of nonradical Muslims will hardly be served if political correctness allows the next terror attack to succeed.

Mr. Abdulmutallab’s alleged links to Yemen also raise questions about why the Administration is now returning Guantanamo detainees to that unstable Middle East nation. Pentagon officials have raised alarms about Yemen as an emerging al Qaeda sanctuary for at least a year, and now we may have the first case of a terrorist trained there to strike at U.S. airline or domestic targets. The Yemen government says it is cooperating with the U.S., and the CIA is said to be providing intelligence for some of Aden’s anti-al Qaeda efforts. But at this point the repatriation of Gitmo detainees to Yemen seems dangerous, and recklessly so.

No doubt in the days ahead we’ll learn more about how the young Nigerian became radicalized. Like many of the 9/11 murderers, he came from an affluent family and was highly educated. We know by now that the poverty-causes-terrorism school is false, but this is one more reminder. Authorities will also want to know how he was recruited—whether in person during a trip to Yemen or other sanctuary, through al Qaeda agents elsewhere, or perhaps via the Internet like Major Hasan. The report that the Nigerian turned more radical only in the last 18 months shows that our antiterror vigilance will have to continue for years, if not decades, to come.

Such vigilance is easier to sustain, and likelier to succeed in deterring attacks, if we understand that we are still fighting a multifront war against the various elements of radical Islam. This time, thanks to luck and bravery, the 278 passengers and crew of Northwest Flight 253 avoided death. We’d rather take the luck out of it.

Related posts:

1. Terror on Flight 253: Does it Fit al-Qaeda’s Pattern?
2. Detroit Terror Suspect: The Nigeria Connection
3. Abdulmutallab Was In US Terror Suspect Database

Fears that al-Qaeda is planning a wave of suicide attacks with syringe bombs have been heightened after it emerged that a Somali man tried to board an aircraft last month carrying the same type of device as that used by the Detroit bomber.

Police in Somalia said the terrorist was caught “red handed” in Mogadishu trying to take powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe onto a commercial airliner bound for Dubai. The suspect had 1kg of chemical powder – more than 12 times as much as the Detroit bomber – though the exact composition of the chemicals is not yet known.

Although investigators have not yet established a link to al-Qaeda, the Somali case is so similar to the method used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the Christmas Day attack that security agencies are braced for the possibility of further attacks. The news will increase pressure on Britain to introduce full body scanners at all airports, following an announcement that the Dutch government is to install scanners at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport – where Abdulmutallab caught the plane to Detroit – within three weeks.

As US investigators continued to question Abdulmutallab, Somali police revealed details of the arrest of the unnamed Somali national who was held as he tried to board a Daallo Airlines flight on November 13.

Police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise said: “We don’t know whether he’s linked with al-Qaeda or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed.”

The suspect, who tried to bribe the security team that detained him, was carrying a white shampoo bottle with a black acid-like substance in it, and a clear plastic bag with a “light green chalky substance” and a syringe containing a green liquid. A security official said the powder “had the strong scent of ammonia”. Samples have been sent to London for testing.

If the Somali case is linked to al-Qaeda, it will be the third time the terrorist group has tried to launch an attack using powdered explosives and a syringe. As well as the Detroit attack, a similar device was used in August in a failed assassination attempt on Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister, by a senior al-Qaeda terrorist who had smuggled the device into Saudi Arabia from Yemen. He hid the device in his groin area and detonated it during a pre-arranged meeting with the Prince, killing himself and injuring the Prince, who had been tricked into agreeing to the meeting.

Abdulmutallab has told investigators he was trained in bomb-making by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen, which lies across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Large parts of Somalia are controlled by an insurgent group, al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaeda. Hundreds extremists are known to have sailed from Somalia to Yemen, where many are thought to have received explosives training.

Dozens of Britons have also travelled to Yemen in recent months, where MI5 fear they have joined al-Qaeda training camps, and Abdulmutallab told his captors that there were “many more like me” in Yemen waiting to launch similar attacks.

The Yemeni government announced its forces had stormed an al-Qaeda hideout in the Hudaydah province, in western Yemen, leading to the arrest of at least one terrorist suspect, in the first of what are likely to be a series of raids in the wake of the Detroit bomb attack.

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Britain has been accused of being a “menace to the outside world” as American anger over the UK’s perceived failure to tackle Islamic extremism intensified.

Senior policymakers in the United States said the attempted suicide bomb attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is thought to have become radicalised in London, was further evidence that one of the biggest threats to US security came from Britain, where the capital has been dubbed “Londonistan” by critics.

There was also criticism of the “ghettoisation” of British Muslims, compared with the “assimilation” of Muslims in America. Muslim immigrants to the US were much better integrated in society and considered themselves Americans “within a generation” because the US embraced the “melting pot” concept, said Marc Thiessen, former chief speechwriter for President George W Bush and a former Pentagon aide.

“That doesn’t exist in Europe in the same way and particularly in Britain, which is a more socially stratified society than the US,” he said. “They live in Muslim ghettoes and feel alienated from the larger society and not accepted.”

Abdulmutallab was president of the Islamic Society at University College London between 2006 and 2007, while he was studying for an engineering degree. UCL, together with many other British universities, has been accused of failing to stop radical preachers giving talks on campus for fear of being accused of Islamophobia.

Daniel Pipes, a scholar on radical Islam and former adviser to Rudolph Giuliani during his presidential campaign, said: “The UK is a menace to the outside world. It’s been a problem for years now. This is just one more example.”

The Home Office refused Abdulmutallab a student visa in May and put him on an immigration watch list but did not pass this information to the US. While some officials have said the information could have helped American agencies, others have more fundamental worries about Britain and Europe.

“We are in grave danger as a result of the fact that we are lowering our defences by doing away with vital tools in the war on terror that have proven successful – all in response to the hue and cry from the European Left and to appease European opinion,” said Mr Thiessen. “You are still in the law enforcement approach to terrorism in Britain – the one that we seem to be returning to here in the US.

“The fact is there is no shame in aggressively interrogating terrorists or treating them as enemy combatants as opposed to criminals. What was attempted in Detroit, what was done to you on the London Underground, these were not crimes, they were acts of war.”

Charles Allen, a recently-retired veteran CIA officer who was intelligence chief at the Department of Homeland Security under Mr Bush, said: “The British have an immense problem. There are more challenges in Muslim immigrants integrating into British society than there is in America, a lack of assimilation, a great deal of alienation.”

As a result, al-Qaeda had “worked much harder to get Westerners, people who live in the West, who may be citizens of the West” to become recruits and train in places like the tribal areas of Pakistan and Yemen. “The British have the most immediate and serious problem.”

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Terrorism-Act-2000There are currently 45 proscribed organisations under the terms of the Terrorism Act (2000), which states (p. 2, Ch. 11, Part II, Sec. 3.5) that an organisation is considered to be “concerned in terrorism” if it:

(a) commits or participates in acts of terrorism,
(b) prepares for terrorism,
(c) promotes or encourages terrorism, or
(d) is otherwise concerned in terrorism

If these criteria are met, the final decision on whether to proscribe then rests with the Home Secretary, who must further consider (Memorandum to the Terrorism Act 2000, 2008 No. 1931, p. 2, Sec. 7.2):

• The nature and scale of the organisation’s activities;
• The specific threat that it poses to the UK;
• The specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas;
• The extent of the organisation’s presence in the UK; and
• The need to support international partners in fight against terrorism.

These conditions cannot yet be applied to Islam4UK, a Home Office spokesman told Left Foot Forward – despite it being a front for al-Muhajiroun. He added:

“Proscription is a tough but necessary power to tackle terrorism. Decisions on proscription must be proportionate and based on evidence that a group is concerned in terrorism as defined in the Terrorism Act 2000.

“Organisations which cause us concern, including those which might change their name to avoid the consequences of proscription, are kept under constant review. As and when new material comes to light it is considered and the organisation re-assessed as part of that process.”

The remarks echo those of Parliamentary answers on the legality of Hizb ut-Tahrir, another extremist organisation which Tory leader David Cameron claimed had received public funds to run Muslim schools, a claim he later retracted.

On March 16th last year, Security Minister Lord West told the Lords that:

“Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) along with other organisations which cause us concern is kept under continuous review. As and when new material comes to light it is considered and the organisation re-assessed as part of that process. Any decision to proscribe must be based on evidence that a group is concerned in terrorism as defined in the Terrorism Act 2000, and must be proportionate.“

An answer repeated by Crime and Policing Minister David Hanson in response to a question from David Amess on the proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the Commons on November 12th.

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Plans to allow passengers to be virtually strip searched by the machines were denounced by MEPs as a threat to personal dignity.

They believe the images, if stored or published, could end up being published online revealing embarrassing details of celebrities.The full body scanners can potentially show off medical details such as breast implants.

The European Commission is proposing the airports use the scanners by 2010. They insist passengers would still be able to opt for traditional metal detectors, combined with the pat-down search if necessary.

They say it will shorten queues at airports although passenger groups, human rights lawyers and health experts will be consulted before the machines become used widespread.

Sarah Ludford, Lib Dem MEP for London, told The Times: “Although claims are made that the images are not of photographic quality, they seem to be quite explicit about portrayal of genitalia and intimate medical details such as breast implants and colostomy bags.

“Travellers need to know exactly what the images display, their right to opt for an alternative search, and how they can have confidence that intrusive and sensitive images will not be misused.

“There is a real fear that these images – particularly of celebrities – could end up on the internet. Despite all kinds of promises and laws, we know that personal data has not been secure in the past.”

The technology has already been tested voluntarily at Heathrow and Luton airports, Schiphol in Amsterdam and Helsinki’s Vantaa.

A spokesman for the EU transport commissioner said: “It is correct that the body will indeed be pictured. But the quality is more that of a negative of a photograph; it is not a very clear image, but sufficient to detect metal things, explosives or strange objects. Many aspects have been exaggerated right now by some parliamentarians.”

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The full body scanners being introduced to Britain’s airports risk breaking child protection laws against making indecent images of children, campaign groups have claimed.

The pictures created by the scanners are so graphic they are tantamount to “virtual strip searching”, according to privacy campaigners who oppose the use of the security devices.

Ministers may be forced to consider making under-18s exempt from the scans and civil liberties campaigners are demanding measures to ensure the images, which will include those of celebrities, are not leaked onto the internet. Airport officials say the images from the £80,000 scanners are only seen by a single security officer in a remote location before it is deleted.

But a 12-month trial at Manchester airport of scanners which reveal naked images of passengers only went ahead last month after children were exempted.

The decision came after Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, gave warning that the scanners could breach the Protection of Children Act 1978, under which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a “pseudo-image” of a child.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport told The Guardian: “We understand the concerns expressed about privacy in relation to the deployment of body scanners. It is vital staff are properly trained and we are developing a code of practice to ensure these concerns are properly taken into account.

Gordon Brown gave the go-ahead at the weekend for the scanners to be rolled out across all Britain’s major airports, and said travellers would see the gradual introduction of full-body scans and hand luggage checks for traces of explosives.

The Prime Minister told the BBC that the Government would do everything in its power to tighten security following the attempt by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate a bomb on a plane bound for the USA on Christmas Day.

BAA, which runs six UK airports, said it would now install the devices “as soon as is practical” at Heathrow.

A spokesman said: “It is our view that a combination of technology, intelligences and passenger profiling will help build a more robust defence against the unpredictable and changing nature of the terrorist threat to aviation.”

But he added that nothing had yet been decided on exactly which passengers would undergo the full body scans, and declined to comment on how soon BAA would be extending the use of scanners to other airports.

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Controversial passenger profiling techniques could be used in response to the attempted Detroit plane bombing, the Home Secretary has announced.

Alan Johnson said he was looking at whether ”additional targeted profiling” was needed to beef up airport security.

Passengers could be searched according to their race, ethnic background, age and gender, a decision that is likely to face opposition from civil rights groups. Announcing a series of new security measures, Mr Johnson warned passengers would face further delays as more were searched before they board planes.

As well as body scanners, which will be brought in at Heathrow by the end of this month, passengers will see more sniffer dogs.

By the end of the year all British airports will be required to have trace equipment in place to detect explosives in the air.

In a House of Commons statement, Mr Johnson accepted no one technology would be ”100% effective”.

He acknowledged there were civil liberties concerns about profiling, but said ministers also had an ”overriding obligation” to protect lives.

”We are examining carefully whether additional targeted passenger profiling might help to enhance airport security,” Mr Johnson said.

”We will be considering all the issues involved, mindful of civil liberties concerns, aware that identity based profiling has its limitations, but conscious of our overriding obligations to protect peoples’ life and liberty.”

He added: ”It is clear that no one measure will be enough to defeat inventive and determined terrorists and there is no single technology which we can guarantee will be 100% effective against such attacks.”

Mr Johnson addressed MPs returning to Parliament for the first time since the attempted bombing on Christmas Day.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former student at University College London, attempted to ignite explosives packed in his underwear as the plane made its final descent to Detroit.

Mr Johnson said the system “hadn’t failed” but the Government wanted to see if it could be strengthened.

Mr Johnson said: “It is clear that no one measure will be enough to defeat inventive and determined terrorists and there is no single technology which we can guarantee will be 100% effective against such attacks.”

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