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Terrorism carries no profile

Gulfnews
Posted on Friday January 15, 2010

Airport profiling is back with a vengeance in US airports and on international flights to the US despite the fact that most experts agree profiling doesn’t work; human rights advocates decry the erosion of civil liberties.

A series of foiled terrorist plots, most recently the Christmas Day attempt by Nigerian Omar Farouq Abdul Muttalib to blow up an airliner landing in Detroit and the arrest of five American Muslims from Northern Virginia in Pakistan on terrorism charges, escalated calls for greater airport security and profiling of Muslims, greater monitoring of Muslims and radical websites, and increased military intervention in Yemen.

While right-wing and Islamophobic commentators have been quick to call for increased airport security for a quick (and enormously costly) fix, enhanced security requires attention not only to airport security but also, and most importantly, to psychological, identity and political problems that feed radicalisation. It requires working more closely with Muslim communities in the US and around the world.

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