Analysis: Transit security highlighted

HAIFA, Israel, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Israel's security industry focused on transportation security this week, welcoming a delegation from abroad and holding a national conference on the subject.

The international delegation, which arrived in Israel Tuesday, included representatives from several airline companies, including FLY BMI, Singapore Airlines, Austrian Airlines, China Airlines, and KLM, according to a report by Port2Port, Israel's shipping industry newspaper.

The tour was also sponsored by Green Light Aviation Security Training and Consultancy, a London-based group. The company describes itself as a leading proponent of the passenger profiling security tactic.

"It has long been recognized that the effectiveness of any security program is dependent upon the ability and motivation of those personnel tasked with its implementation," according to company material from Green Light.

"New technologies certainly increase our potential to reveal the designs of terrorists or disturbed individuals, however they will never replace human intuition," the company said.

Green Light representatives said of the tour to Israel -- the third of its kind: "Participants will be able to see how security technologies, developed in Israel, have been incorporated into the infrastructure of some of the transportation hubs world-renowned for their security.

"The tour will include site visits and presentations relating to suicide bombing incidents in Jerusalem's Jaffa Street and Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium and Mike's Place (two seaside Tel Aviv establishments that were the sites of suicide bombings in the 1990s)."

Among the Israeli companies slated for participation, the report said, were Magal, Nirtal, EMG, and SDT (Scent Detection Technologies).

David Arzi, the chairman of the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute, said: "The goal of the visit is (for the delegation) to learn from the Israeli companies' and organizations' experience, about airport, port, airplane, airline, and border crossing security ... (it) is likely to (spur) cooperation agreements between Israeli (security) companies and foreign entities," according to the report.

The delegation was also slated to visit several key security sites around Israel, including Ben Gurion International Airport, the central command and control centers of the Israel Police Department, and the Emergency Medical Center at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital.

"The civilian security branch (of the Israeli security industry) is considered the golden egg of Israeli exports," the report quoted Arzi as saying, adding that exports from this branch of the industry grew 12 percent in 2006 and are worth $1 billion. "An additional growth of some 15 percent -- for a total worth of $1.15 billion -- is expected for 2007."

Among the transportation security technologies being developed by Israeli companies are the Mini Nose, a sensor that "detects the presence of constituent elements of explosive materials by collecting and analyzing trace molecular evidence from the explosive or its vicinity," Doron Shalom, the vice president of business development for Scent Detection Technologies wrote to United Press International in an e-mail message earlier this year.

"The sensors are capable of detecting trace amounts of material in gaseous and liquid phase and are capable of independent remote operation without any human interfering," Shalom said.

Another Israeli company, Acro Security Technologies, has developed the Peroxide Explosives Tester. Peroxide-based explosives are undetectable by devices that screen for conventional, nitrogen-based explosives like TNT and nitroglycerin.

"That someone will bring down a plane with TATP is not a question of if; it is a question of when," Ehud Keinan, the inventor of PET and Acro's chief scientific consultant, told United Press International in a telephone interview in September. TATP is triacetone triperoxide, the compound behind some 90 percent of peroxide-based explosives.

Keinan recounted a trip he took to London to consult on the explosive compound: "Before the meeting, I left my hotel room, went down the street to buy some hydrogen peroxide, some acetone, lemon -- that's the catalyst, as an acid -- and I prepared some TATP in my hotel room.

"It was about 50 milligrams, or the size of a dime, but when you hold a burning cigarette to it, it makes a fireball the size of a basketball," Keinan said.

The Israeli aviation security conference and exposition, likely to include many of Israel's leading security technology companies and also sponsored by the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute, is slated for Thursday.