American authorities are warning airlines with flights to Russia for the Olympic Games to be on the lookout for bombs in toothpaste containers or other similar cosmetic tubes, writes Time.
Citing unnamed government officials, CNN and ABC News report that the warning was issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to both domestic and foreign airlines. Authorities cautioned that they haven’t identified any specific threat to the U.S., CNN and ABC report.
“While we are not aware of a specific threat to the homeland at this time, this routine communication is an important part of our commitment to making sure we meet that priority,” an official told ABC News. “As always, our security apparatus includes a number of measures, both seen and unseen, and DHS will continue to adjust security measures to fit an ever evolving threat environment.”
the Olympic flame has arrived in Sochi on Wednesday after a four-month journey that saw it travel more than 60,000 kilometres, taking in the North Pole and even a trip unlit into space.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the athletes’ village in the company of double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva.
His immediate focus was on the threat from terrorism.
“We remember tragic situations which happened in the past during international competitions, including the one in the United States during the marathon. It’s all quite recent,” Putin said, as quoted by euronews.com.
Veteran security consultant Bill Rathburn believes that a terror-attack during the Olympic Games in Sochi is not a question of If, but a question of ‘when?”.
“The security threat is higher than it’s ever been in the history of the Olympic Games,” Rathburn told Yahoo News. “In my opinion, it’s not a matter of whether there will be some incident, it’s just a matter of how bad it’s going to be.”