By Jessica Plautz From Mashable

Travelers headed to the United States from abroad over the Fourth of July weekend may encounter additional security at some airports.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson directed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to “implement enhanced security measures” at “certain overseas airports with direct flights to the United States.”

One counterterrorism official told The Associated Press that intelligence officials are concerned about new al-Qaeda efforts to produce a bomb that would go undetected through airport security. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly by name.

American intelligence has picked up indications that bomb makers from al-Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate have traveled to Syria to link up with the al-Qaeda affiliate there, the AP said.

The TSA has the authority to call for additional security measures at foreign departure points for direct flights to the U.S.

Americans and others from the West have traveled to Syria over the past year to join al Nusra Front’s fight against the Syrian government. Al Nusra is an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. The fear is that a U.S. or western European passport holder who has traveled to Syria to fight could carry such a bomb onto an American plane. The fear is that a U.S. or western European passport holder who has traveled to Syria to fight could carry such a bomb onto an American plane.

Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has long been fixated on bringing down airplanes with hidden explosives. It was behind failed and thwarted plots involving suicide bombers with explosives designed to hide inside underwear and explosives hidden inside printer cartridges shipped on cargo planes.

The counterterrorism official who spoke to the AP declined to describe the bomb, but officials in the past have raised concerns about explosives being surgically implanted.

The Homeland Security Department would not clarify whether the call for enhanced security was in response to a specific threat.

“We are sharing recent and relevant information with our foreign allies and are consulting the aviation industry,” Johnson said in a statement. “Aviation security includes a number of measures, both seen and unseen, informed by an evolving environment.”

Increased security has been on the minds of airport security experts recently, according to aviation security expert Jeff Price.

“For the past year or so, there’s been rumors that the bad guys have essentially been building a better type of liquid-based explosives that is a bit more idiot-proof than what the underwear bomber first tried using,” Price told the Denver Post. “So it’s not surprising that we need to take a closer look at what’s going through the screening checkpoints.”

Johnson said the security measures would “promote aviation security without unnecessary disruptions to the traveling public.”

PHOTO: A TSA officer at a security checkpoint at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Maryland. IMAGE: PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

For more on this story go to: http://mashable.com/2014/07/02/airport-security-abroad/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

EDITOR: Officials here in the Cayman Islands have said there is no imminent threat to airport security here. They confirmed the TSA send out briefings on a regular basis to Cayman and what measures they think would be the best deterrent to whatever threat that they’re intelligence is telling them.

Although Cayman is a UK territory and it’s  security rules are governed by the UK Department of Transport, because of our islands’ proximity to the United States, we adhere to their recommendations.