Explosion at Brussels Airport.

[Devils Advocate]

More innocents killed sadly today in yet another cowardly attack.
However this time I fear the implications for travel are going to be vast.
I know how tight security is at present when we all travel and I'm grateful for it, but it's always amazed me how just about anybody could walk in to the vast and crowded check in area with a bag full of explosives with not a chance of being challenged, sometimes to the point of actually feeling uncomfortable being there if I dwelled on it too much.

How the hell do the security forces deal with this? What possible controls can they implement?

Horrific news, and I expect the way we travel to change even more in the very near future.

[katy]

We were just talking about this. Impossible to secure places like railway stations too. Anyone can walk around airports as far as Check in without even a ticket. They should do the same as Nairobi Airport with bags and people required to pass screening as soon as they enter the main door. Would cause even more delays in busy airports

[Devils Advocate]

It's going to happen. I bet there'll be big changes coming in very,very soon.

[costakid]

300 KM away Merkel has just announced she will not change her mind on open to all policy.

[Free at Last]

They should do the same as Nairobi Airport with bags and people required to pass screening as soon as they enter the main door. Would cause even more delays in busy airports

We came across that system at a couple of smaller airports in Thailand recently, and at one of the hotels we stayed at, all baggage had to go through a security scanner at the entrance (and handbags, etc every time we returned to the hotel).

I suppose it would be impossible to introduce similar systems at railway and metro stations in major cities, though, as transport would end up virtually paralysed.

What has happened today in Brussels is awful, but I guess the authorities have got to try to weigh the risks of imposing so many security measures that places can't function against the risks of casualties. I am glad it's not me who has to take that decision.

[Lavanda]

Explosions at airports, railway stations, bus stations and metros have happened before and will happen in the future. It's the way we live today. Anyone travelling takes that risk. It's not nice but it's a fact of 21st century living and moving around. Transport hubs could have scanners at the doors and it would be no more disruptive than everyone going through security anyway — think about it. Recently security at Ho Chi Minh City was excellent with checks against the numbers stuck on bags and on passports when leaving the airport. I thought it was a bit strange but it is to check that the right bag goes with the right person. In fact the most dangerous part of my trip, which involved eight flights, was arriving and leaving Heathrow Airport! That place will be hit one day for certain. Scary.

[olive]

Scanners and extra security are all very well. (I am travelling by ar on Thursday so hope it is beefed up)

I think that we ought to be a lot more proactive and tackle at source as we live in different times to say even twenty years ago.

New offences on the statute books. Much greater powers to the police to detain suspected (i.e. known jihadists) and then to search their property for weapons and bomb making kit. Why not have an offence for cohorting with known terrorist groups? Harbouring a known jihadist? Might be a bit tough for a few caught in the transistion period of introduction but once it was up and running, the excuses " I didn't know they were going to make me a sex slave" or " I didn't realise I would have to grow a beard, not be allowed to smoke and have to pray each day" wouldn't wash.

[Lavanda]

Not going off topic already but we live in a democracy and the whole point of that is that people are free to think certain things and act in certain ways. How we are going to stop, search, detain and charge people with knowing a person who knows a person who goes to the same café as another person, is a real problem. I would say round up all the suspects and shoot them and then that will be that but it won't. It's a real problem; the balance between rounding up the bad guys while keeping the good ones free. I think attitudes may harden and perhaps that is what the terrorists want. Terror is designed to terrorise. Only only hope is to not be terrified and get on with our democratic lives while taking a hard line with "these terrorists were known to the security services" as we so often hear after the event.

[olive]

Times have changed but our attitudes and approaches haven't.

In the past, the enemy wore a uniform and fought using Queensbury Rules against others who wore a uniform. Heck they even observed the Geneva Convention.

Now they fight in very different ways. Just saying we need to change. If you are innocent what have you got to be afraid of?

[Stevemul]

Controversial but continuing Olive's points, the guy they shot and caught on Friday obviously knew what was about to happen. By " forcing" him to speak immediately after his arrest, many lives could have been saved. Just saying....

[scotty]

During the troubles in Northern Ireland and the bombings in Dublin we always had checks on all bags and people coming into the airport. It never really caused any delays as everyone allowed extra time for the security check. I bet this will be introduced again in the EU.

[Flexo]

How the hell do the security forces deal with this? What possible controls can they implement?

The technology has actually been around for quite some time. If you have ever been to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion you have probably noticed that the israelis allow you to carry on an opened water bottle onto the airplane. They have a sniffer (looks like a vacuum cleaner) that scans the content of the bottle. On top of that, of course they demand you to open up your luggage before check in.

A combination system will probably be implemented, you get your luggage scanned before you enter the building, you have to open it up and so forth. Complicated but effective. I wish the terrorists would get a slap on the face for every time someone has to do a security check, ever.

[markwilding]

I'm not sure anything will stop them. The problem just moves. First from the Planes to before security where there are often massive queues at London's airports. If you then have to queue to enter the airport, that area will become the vulnerable area.

[El Cid]

During the troubles in Northern Ireland and the bombings in Dublin we always had checks on all bags and people coming into the airport. It never really caused any delays as everyone allowed extra time for the security check. I bet this will be introduced again in the EU.

Protecting airports is comparatively easy. Railways and the tube/metro/buses are far more difficult. The disruption that proper security would cause would be unacceptable. There are other places that are almost impossible to control. The attacks in Tunisia are a good example. Imagine an inflatable boat full of terrorists coming ashore on Brighton beach in August all armed with automatic weapons, rocket launchers even. The carnage would be massive and there is no way the local police could cope with it.

The whole of Europe is now potentially teeming with potential suicide bombers coming in as refugees. The situation can, sadly, only get worse.

Sid

[markwilding]

The reality is that they try to use fear as a weapon as well so they only need to plant a bomb every now and again.

I'm travelling this week but I'm not bothered but my son is going to London the week after and I have to admit that has got me a little worried.

[olive]

Good. Let's hope the authorities in Europe wake up and start actively weeding out this scourge proactively. If they turn out to have got in undocumented with Merkels welcome pack then that is another black mark for her autobiography..

[katy]

Wouldn't stop me travelling but there are a lot of places I wouldn't go to now. I look back fondly to the days when flying was as easy as catching a bus. If anyone has ever taken a train from Airports such as Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid etc. Or the Gatwick express it is easy to see that they are impossible to secure. Almost everyone with suitcases and crowded.
The Terrorists are winning. If I were younger I would be looking to move out of Europe.

[markwilding]

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. This stuff is going on all over the world.

[Parilla]

You can dress this conflict up as much as you like with the "terror" word, the fact is the West is at war. A different type of war from that we are mostly familiar with, but a war that has been 1,000 years in the making, and one we in the West are losing.

We all have a right to live our lives in peace and safety, but now we are less concerned for the rights of that huge majority, than for the rights of some cowardly, murderous scumbag who has been shot in the knee by Belgian police.

History shows us that in every war there are innocent casualties, it is simply unavoidable. Our enemies recognize this and have absolutely no qualms about the random mass killings of "bystanders". Until we have the same attitude, until we regain the stomach to take the fight to them, we will continue losing the war.

The argument is always that we would be lowering ourselves to the standards of the savages we oppose, but I would prefer my family and I to be live savages than dead saints.

Parilla

[Free at Last]

The whole of Europe is now potentially teeming with potential suicide bombers coming in as refugees. The situation can, sadly, only get worse.

But the vast majority of suicide bombers who have been involved in attacks within Europe have not arrived as refugees. 3 of the 4 7/7 bombers in London were second generation British citizens and the other was a Muslim convert originally from Jamaica. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, a British citizen. Only two of the men involved in the Paris attacks were identified as having arrived in Greece as refugees, the other 11 were all either French or Belgian citizens. Likewise just this morning two of the Brussels suicide bombers have been identified as Belgian citizens who were already known to the police. Another report today states that the man suspected of having been the bomb maker in both the Paris and Brussels attack "posed as a migrant" but was not.

In fact, Britain and other European countries are now exporting suicide bombers and terrorists to other countries who are going to "fight" for ISIS - Samantha Lewthwaite, Sally Jones and a 15 year old from Dewsbury who was a suicide bomber in Syria. Many others from European countries have done the same. Very timely, the latest example just reported today, a former British Gas call handler from Huddersfield who killed 30 Iraqui soldiers in a suicide bomb attack.

Not having open borders did not protect the USA from the 9/11 attacks, nor from the Boston Marathon bombing which happened even after they had stepped up their security in the aftermath of 9/11.