Israel, US join forces against airline terror

From Ynet News, 3/3/2010, by Yoav Zitun:

...Israel and the United States have signed an agreement to tighten their security cooperation in a bid to prevent airline terror on civilian planes. The new agreement includes joint exercises aimed at examining scenarios of terrorist incidents in the air.

Danny Shenar, head of security at the Transportation Ministry, told Ynet that "the agreement was formed after we established an operations center for aviation security at the security unit two years ago..." ...the center's activity handles 60,000 planes entering Israel every year.

"The Americans found a partner in thwarting terror, and the security cooperation has been going on for seven months now," he noted, adding that "it has proved itself on an extraordinary level in aviation security incidents which have taken place over the past year." For security reasons, Shenar refused to elaborate on those incidents.

The agreement states that in case of a plane hijacking, the two countries will share information instantly, as part of their tightened cooperation. In addition, American and Israeli teams in charge of civilian aviation security will hold meetings to plan simultaneous reactions by both countries in cases of airline terror attacks.

...US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano noted that the agreement would allow her country and Israel to respond better to airline terror incidents...