WASHINGTON — Riders on the Washington metro system were warned Thursday to expect random checks of carry-on items two days after the government disclosed the arrest of an Afghan man for allegedly threatening to bomb the system.
The stepped-up security measures at the height of the Christmas shopping season also coincided with a warning by Interpol that it had received information about possible Al-Qaeda attacks in the United States and Europe...
[Full Article]Washington subway police to begin random bag checks
(Reuters) - Officers will start random bag inspections on the sprawling Washington subway system, the Washington Metro Transit Police said on Thursday, a week after a man was arrested for making bomb threats to the rail system.
Metrorail police officers plan to randomly select bags before passengers enter subway stations and they will swab them or have an explosives-sniffing dog check the bags, according to the Metro police.
There is "no specific or credible threat to the system at this time," Metro said in a statement. Passengers who refuse to have their bags inspected will be denied entry into the subway system...
[Full Article]DC Metro to start random bag searches
WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington's Metro police will start random inspections of passengers' bags at entrances to rail stations and bus bays, transit agency officials announced Thursday.
The program is based on similar efforts in Boston and New York, where there have been viewed favorably by the public, according to Metro Transit Police Department Chief Michael Taborn.
"It is the unpredictability, the randomness of this activity at a variety of different stations and the whole purpose is to throw off the bad guy if he or she has any intent of doing anything to harm the employees or the patrons of that particular transit system," he said.
The inspections have been in the works for years, and are not a response to any particular threat, Taborn said. However, in recent months various threats to the system have come to light. One man was accused of casing stations in what he thought was an al-Qaida plot to bomb and kill commuters and another man is charged with threatening on Facebook to detonate pipe bombs in the subway system...
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