THE "NEW SUICIDE BOMBERS"? Ex-IDF Intelligence Officer Warns Flydubai Attack Could Signal Terrifying New Threat From Radicalized Airline Pilots

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

46% : The attempted downing of a Flydubai passenger jet bound for Israel has raised a frightening new question for aviation and counterterrorism officials: Could terrorist movements or hostile states seek to radicalize trained commercial pilots, effectively turning trusted members of airline crews into 9/11-style suicide attackers from inside the cockpit? Miri Eisin, a former IDF colonel who spent more than two decades in military intelligence, warned that the September 30 attack aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 could represent a new type of aviation terrorism -- one far more difficult to stop than the traditional hijacking model because the potential attacker is already authorized to fly the aircraft.
46% : Those failures have already prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order a comprehensive review of security procedures governing foreign civilian flights entering Israel, including how overseas airline crews are vetted and how information is exchanged among Israeli security agencies, foreign governments and airlines.
44% : "The lone wolf is influenced by the pack of wolves around him, he's influenced by jihadists, by extremists in mosques, he's influenced by prominent Iranians calling for death to Israel," he said.
43% : Oman does not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, and Israeli security procedures were supposed to prevent nationals of countries without diplomatic relations from serving aboard incoming flights unless specifically cleared.
42% : There is also a separate question about how an Omani citizen was assigned to a flight bound for Israel.
41% : Social-media accounts associated with him contained extremist and anti-Israel material, and posts that appeared after the attack included imagery connected to senior Al Qaeda figures.
36% : Eisin nevertheless said the concept behind the attack resembles methods she associates with Iran and its terrorist proxies -- using radicalization and unconventional means to strike Israel or Israeli interests.

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