Officials Watching for 'Body Bombs' on Planes

As the anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden looms, security for US-bound flights has been stepped up around the world. While authorities say that there is no specific information of an impending attack timed for the anniversary, one threat that officials are watching for is "body bombs" that may have been surgically implanted into would-be suicide bombers in an effort to evade airport security, ABC reports.

There is plenty of space inside the human body in which to implant explosives, although high-tech scanners may be able to detect "body bombs," say experts. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri—a man so ruthless that he implanted a bomb in his own brother's rectal cavity in a failed attempt to kill Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief—is believed to be designing body bombs. Authorities say that al-Asiri was responsible for the "underwear bomb" which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab used in an attempt to bring down a plane over Detroit in 2009. (More airport security stories.)