Gaps in Egypt airport security face scrutiny

Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

THE airport is surrounded by a wall topped with barbed wire. Armed sentries are stationed at its entrance, and passengers pass through two security screenings before reaching departure gates; before a recent flight, there were no fewer than eight uniformed guards standing around the checkpoint.

But potential inconsistencies in airport security here and elsewhere in Egypt have never been hard to detect. As guards at a metal detector here forced a departing passenger recently to throw out a pack of safety razors found in his luggage, an airport cafe worker breezed past the checkpoint without any search or inspection. At the Cairo airport on Friday, an officer at an X-ray machine sent text messages while he was scanning luggage. Another guard took a passenger at his word when he said the phone in his pocket had caused a metal detector to beep.