CAIRO: Egyptian authorities have beefed up security measures at Cairo s international airport, fearing incidents similar to recent attacks in Algeria and Britain, the official Middle East News Agency (Mena) reported on Wednesday. Senior police officials, however, did not say whether they were acting in response to a specific security threat. Egypt has already stepped up security this month on Cairo s underground network because of fears of possible attacks on its stations, security sources and state-run media have said. The measures at the airport include erecting five new police checkpoints with sniffer dogs on roads leading to and from the airport, and searching all passengers instead of picking a random sample, police officials said. Mena quoted General Gamal El-Gouhari, the deputy interior minister for airport security, as saying the ministry had taken the measures in part because of the increased influx of Arab tourists to Egypt during the summer. Precautionary measures had to be taken, especially that Egypt is not isolated from the events of the world, like the explosions in Britain and Algeria, because those who carry out these acts are not individuals, but groups, he said. In Algeria, a suicide bomber killed eight soldiers in July inside an army barracks. Last month a jeep was driven into an airport building in Glasgow, Scotland and set ablaze in what police said was a failed car bomb attack. Islamist militants carried out major bomb attacks in Egypt between 2004 and 2006, mainly targeting tourist resorts in the Sinai peninsula.
