UK suspends direct flights to Yemen due to security concerns

The United Kingdom has suspended direct air services to Yemen as a part of a package of new security steps aimed at dealing with the threat of attacks by al-Qaeda on Western countries.

At present, Yemenia Yemen Airways, the national carrier of Yemen, operates direct flights 2 times a week between Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, and London.

British Airways, the flag-carrier airline of the United Kingdom, does not fly to Yemen.

Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament that a new ‘no-fly’ watch-list will be introduced to stop suspected terrorists from boarding flights to the United Kingdom. This follows the attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane flying from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Detroit in the United States, using explosives hidden in his clothes, on December 25, 2009.

The Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, had studied in the United Kingdom, and it is believed that he was trained by the al-Qaeda in Yemen.

There is information, Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament, that a number of terrorist cells are “actively attempting” to attack the United Kingdom and other countries.

Temporarily suspending direct air services to Yemen, Gordon Brown explained, is a part of the security measures to “protect British lives at home and in the air.”

He termed Yemen as both “an incubator” and “a potential safe haven” for terrorism and that Yemen, along with Somalia, currently posed the worst threat “after the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.” Affiliates and allies of Al-Qaeda, who were drive out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, are attempting to exploit other areas “with weak governance,” like certain parts of Yemen, Brown told parliament.

Gordon Brown said he hoped that the flights between Britain and Yemen could be resumed soon even as talks are being held over stepping up security at airports in Yemen.

Aviation authorities from the United Kingdom are at present in Yemen to hold talks on the air services.

It may be noted that the government of the United Kingdom has set apart 100 million pounds (US $163 million) to help the government of Yemen to train personnel to combat terrorism as well as to support Yemen’s political, economic and social reform.

The British media reported a London-based spokesman of Yemenia Yemen Airways as saying that the United Kingdom decided to suspend flights to Yemen temporarily after the government of the UK demanded that flights from Yemen must stop in Cairo, must be unloaded and checked. And, Yemenia Yemen Airways told the

United Kingdom that the airline could not comply with that request, the spokesman explained.

According to security analysts, the new security measures adopted by the United Kingdom are based on fresh intelligence reports picked up from ‘al-Qaeda chatter’ to the effect that al-Qaeda could be planning ‘some form of attack’ on Britain.

The new package of security measures announced by Britain include, besides introducing, for the first time, a ‘no-fly’ list intended to stop terror suspects from boarding flights to the country, and the use of full-body scanners at major airports in the country from next week.

Apart from the ‘no-fly’ watch-list, the United Kingdom will prepare a bigger list of people who must be subject to ‘enhanced screening’ before boarding flights to the UK.

The announcement by Prime Minister Gordon Brown comes a week before he is scheduled to host an international meeting on January 27, 2010, in London to discuss the terror threat from Yemen, The meeting in London will be followed by a one-day international conference on Afghanistan.