**The US will announce on Friday that it is to begin profiling US-bound passengers to determine who should get extra screening, reports say.**The measures would replace mandatory enhanced screening of all travellers from 14 nations, brought in after the failed attack on a flight in December.
Travellers will be picked out according to how closely they match intelligence on potential terrorist threats.
The new screening strategy results from a review ordered by President Obama.
“It is much more surgically targeting those individuals we are concerned about and have intelligence for,” an administration official said, according to the New York Times.
“This is not a system that can be called profiling in the traditional sense. It is intelligence-based,” said the official.
‘No fly’ list
The measures will apply to US citizens, as well as foreigners travelling to America.
The US government currently has a 6,000-name “no fly” list of suspected terrorists, who are banned from flights to or within US territory.
This will be supplemented by cross-referenced information that may see passengers subject to further screening even if their names are not flagged, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The screening will take into account characteristics like nationality, age, recently visited countries, and partial names, the newspaper said.
While the US does not have the authority to screen passengers in foreign airports, it can sanction air carriers if they do not agree to follow US guidelines for international aviation security.
‘Higher-risk’ nations
A 23-year-old Nigerian man - Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - has been charged with attempting to destroy a plane after he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb on a passenger jet arriving in the US on 26 December 2009.
Abdulmutallab was overpowered by passengers and crew shortly before the Northwest Airlines plane landed in Detroit from Amsterdam.
In the wake of that incident new rules were instated requiring extra screening for passengers from, or travelling through Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.