New airport, old risks

Airports the world over have been in the sights of terrorists for decades, and it comes as no surprise that there are elevated levels of concern regarding security at the new Islamabad airport due to open on April 20^th. The project has been long in the making and will have given those with malign intent plenty of time to position themselves, and in all likelihood have had people within the workforce that built the airport the better to understand how it works and its vulnerabilities. Some construction projects in the area have been halted because of security concerns — line-of-sight from an elevated position to key installations for instance — and it is being suggested that some of those living in the area may be subject to what is being described as ‘extreme vetting’.

Terrorism is ever-adaptive and a huge new airport in a relatively isolated position with poor lines of communication is the terrorist equivalent of winning the lottery. A plethora of targets and endless opportunity, day and night. The Airport Security Force (ASF) is to be deployed at 80 towers on the airport perimeter. It is probably essential that recently settled families and any new madrassa be vetted closely as well as alluded to above. Security fencing must be continuous around the perimeter, and properly maintained. It has not been in the past and terrorists exploited the weakness.

A new international airport is a prestige project and the world — and current and future airlines that will use it — will be watching closely. There can be no slip-ups, no sloppy work, no failure in the checking of those that work at the airport and live in the hostels attached to it, especially the hostels. The vulnerabilities are almost innumerable and if the government and security services appear to be more than usually diligent and intrusive then so be it. There has to be a cordon sanitaire that is truly impermeable and the choke points of entry and exit minutely monitored. Security officials need to ride the buses taking passengers to and fro. We wish nothing but success to the new airport. Travel safely.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2018.

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