technology. it allows them to fabricate a device and test them against screening technology. not just isis and iraq, it is al qaeda and yemen, all the intelligence is pointing to all of these groups really stepping up their efforts to try and attack commercial aviation, even aviation coming into the united states. al qaeda in yemen, the underwear bomber came very close as an airport landed in detroit to someone detonating a bomb on their body. so this is all part of the reason you re seeing the growing concern, all of this contributing to the ban on consumer electronics when you fly. anderson? and evan, the tsa limited the ban to direct flights only to specific countries. so with this new information the government still, they re not widening the laptop ban?
correspondent barbara starr with the details for us. u.s. officials have grown increasingly concerned about the threats against aviation that they are seeing, not just from isis but also al qaeda in syria and al qaeda in yemen. u.s. intelligence and law enforcement agencies believe that isis and other terror groups have developed innovative ways to plant explosives in electronic devices that can fool airport security screening. the concern is heightened because there is u.s. intelligence suggesting that terrorists have obtained sophisticated airport security equipment to test how well the bombs are concealed. cnn has learned this new intelligence was a significant part of the decision earlier this month to ban laptops, tablets and other electronic devices from the passenger cabins of planes flying directly to the united states from ten middle eastern and north african
to the ban of several weeks ago of carrying consumer electronics like laptops and tablets on to airplanes because of this concern of capability. but that wasn t all of it. it wasn t just isis, there s been monitoring or increased chatter of threats against aviation from isis, from al qaeda in syria, and in particular, also al qaeda in yemen, that has a long, long history of being able to do this. it s raising a lot of questions about where the threat goes from here and how the federal government responds, will they need to do more? anderson. evan, the tsa limited the band to direct flights to specific countries. why does the government not have a wider ban? the u.s. and the europeans have layered security that have greatly improved the chance of
a number of countries in the middle east and africa. the cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr has more details. reporter: u.s. officials have grown increasingly concerned about the threat against aviation that they are seeing, not just from isis, but also al qaeda in syria and al qaeda in yemen. u.s. intelligence and law enforcement agencies believe that isis and other terror groups have developed innovative ways to plant explosives in electronic devices that can fool airport security screaming. the concern is heightened because there is u.s. intelligence suggesting that terrorists have obtained sophisticated airport security equipment to test how well the bombs are concealed. cnn has learned this new intelligence once a significant part of a decision made earlier this month was made to ban
qaeda affiliate al shabab. cnn has learned the explosives were hidden in space created by removing parts of the dvd drive. paul cruickshank joins us now, cnn terrorism analyst for more on this. you were telling us just now that this is serious but not catastrophic. serious. because these terrorist groups including al qaeda in yemen are developing new ways to try to get bombs onto airplanes including by concealing them inside laptops. perfecting some of those techniques, the intelligence suggests. they are obtaining detection systems to try to probe their weaknesses. and so there s significant concern that they may stage future attempts to try to get a bomb onto a western passenger jet. but at the same time the state-of-the-art systems which are deployed in airports in the united states in europe and