German authorities continue to investigate a foiled terror-plot involving the Frankfurt airport, an Israeli airplane and a suitcase bomb. A terror cell of six, German-jihadists attempted to bribe an airport worker into smuggling a bomb onto a plane. From the AP:

Several of the accused approached a person with security clearance at an unidentified airport last summer, who agreed to smuggle an explosives-filled bag onto a plane in exchange for money, federal prosecutors said.

This is not the first time a thwarted air-terror plot has involved an airport worker. One of the British jihadists in last summer’s US-UK, Bonjinka-style plot involved a man with a Heathrow Airport security clearance.

Then there’s the case of Dhieren Barot, head of a British al-Qaeda cell and recently sentenced to life in an English prison for conspiracy to commit mass murder in the UK and the United States. Barot’s plans included detonating a dirty bomb, attacking the London Tube and launching a gas attack on the Heathrow Airport express train. During the trial, Scotland Yard called Barot a “determined and experienced terrorist.”

From 1991-1995, Barot worked for Air Malta, in its central London office. In the summer of 1995, Barot appealed to the air carrier to transfer him to the company’s Heathrow Airport office. His transfer application was turned down. After Barot’s conviction, Air Malta released a statement.

The company wishes to clarify that Mr Barot, a British national, worked for Air Malta from 1991 till 1995 as a junior ticket and reservations agent at the airline’s office in Regent Street, London. Mr.Barot was 19 years when he joined the airline. It is to be noted that Mr.Barot is being charged for activities he carried out five to six years after terminating his job with the airline.

In September of 1995, Barot told his Air Malta bosses he was taking a ‘long overseas trip.’ After he left the company, Air Malta says they never heard from him again. During the recent terror trial, British prosecutor Edmund Lawson revealed that Barot’s long trip was indeed overseas — to Pakistan where he attended a terrorist training camp. (Source: BBC)

American airports are not immune to having terrorists as employees. FBI Special Agent Thomas Powers recently confirmed that in 1996, a baggage handler at Logan Airport in Boston was a known member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah. But also according to Powers, the baggage handler was legally in the country at the time and because of this, there was no official reason to arrest him — this was before 9/11. This information was only recently made public — in the book Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil, by Tom Diaz and Barbara Newman. The book is required reading for anyone interested in understanding how terror cells inside America exist — ready and waiting for orders.

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