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WASHINGTON-Airport screeners will be taking a closer look at remote control toys in carry-on luggage due to concerns they could be used to detonate bombs, U.S. officials said Monday. The new practice is a result of reviewing recent intelligence, but isn't based on any specific threat, according to the Transportation Security Administration."We're always looking at the dots," TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said Monday. "And we got to the point on this one that we felt it was advisable to alert our officers. "Passengers-including children-carrying the toys on airplanes may have to go through secondary screening.The TSA does not have statistics on how many people bring remote-controlled toys in their carry-on luggage, Hawley said."Although in our informal survey, we were told that there are more than we think," he said.Airport screeners have been trained for a while on the possibility that remote-controlled toys could detonate bombs, but they have now been told to pay even closer attention.Authorities recently arrested two Florida engineering students and accused one of them of posting a video online with instructions on how to use a remote-controlled toy to set off a bomb.In the video-which has been taken off the Web-one of the suspects speaks in Arabic and "shows how a remote-control toy vehicle is constructed and operated, and gives instructions as to the range and distance the remote will operate," according to the FBI.The video's narrator also explains how to convert the vehicle into a detonator, according to court documents. TSA officials said the video was not the catalyst for looking more closely at remote-controlled toys.The agency decided against a ban of the toys."We think it is a better approach to inform our officers of the latest tactical information, and that way if the terrorists keep changing their plans, we're not stuck with permanent regulations on an outdated kind of threat," Hawley said.Children carrying these toys will not be subjected to aggressive searches, Hawley said. But children will not be ignored either."We know that al-Qaida uses children and babies and old people, and you can't predict what a terrorist looks like," he said.As in the days of Noah....
