US now bans laptops on flights from Middle East

Washington, Tuesday

US has announced a ban on electronic devices from cabin baggage on flights from eight mainly Middle Eastern and North African countries.

Officials said extremists were planning to bring down passenger jets with bombs hidden in laptops, tablets cameras, DVD players and electronic games.

The measure will affect nine airlines operating out of 10 airports. Large electronic devices will only be allowed on board in checked baggage. Phones are exempt from the new rules.

US officials said the airlines had been given 96 hours, beginning at 07:00 GMT today, to ban devices bigger than a mobile phone or smartphone from cabins. They said the ban had no end date.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly called members of Congress over the weekend to explain the security issues behind the ban, congressional aides said.

The restrictions had been under consideration for several weeks, US media said. In February 2016 an aircraft operated by the Dubai-based carrier Daallo was damaged by an explosion shortly after take-off from the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Investigators said a passenger who was sucked out of the plane had been carrying a laptop bomb.

The pilot managed to land and the alleged bomber was the only fatality. Had the device gone off at cruising altitude, the plane would almost certainly have been destroyed.

Islamist militant group al Shabaab, which is linked to al Qaeda, claimed that it was responsible. The possibility of further such attacks is apparently what is now concerning American spies. But, as ever with matters of intelligence, officials are reluctant to go into detail about exactly why the ban is being proposed.

That means travellers are being asked to trust the US government when it says that this inconvenience is vital for their own safety. At present, trust is a commodity which is in very short supply. —BBC

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