The Spider's Web

Some faint echoes surrounding the two recent airport security scares.

Several of the intelligence "experts" called in by Sky, BBC and CNN on Thursday referred to the fact that both of the suspect individuals were women, and were at pains to point out a possible link - centred on the notion of precedents - to the "Chechen Black Widows" episode of August 2004, when two Russian airliners were blown out of the sky by what Russian authorities claimed were Chechen suicide bombers, though this has never established by independent inquiry. The expert advice sounded suspiciously like a propaganda opportunity for someone.

Huntington, W. Virginia brings to mind Reston, N. Virginia. It's in Reston that in May this year a server began to host strange mutations of the extremist but also FSB-infiltrated Kavkaz Centre website. Probably quite unrelated, but it's hard to avoid reflecting that the general edginess now afflicting airline travel around the world may be fertile ground for the growing of various intelligence-led fantasies and disinformation campaigns. Countries such as Iran, Syria and the Russian Federation have much to gain in terms of destabilizing the West's security arrangements.