By Alexander Jusdanis
Rabat – Royal Air Maroc (RAM) has issued a communiqué stating that passengers on flights to the US must place all electronics, with exception of smartphones and medical devices, in checked baggage.
In the communiqué, sent out Wednesday morning, RAM noted that the restrictions were applied “conforming to the decision of the American authorities.”
The ban comes following the White House’s announcement on Tuesday that restrictions on in-flight electronics would be applied to incoming flights from 13 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries – Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
Eric Swalwell, a member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told ABC News that the restrictions were prompted by new intelligence that ISIS was planning to build explosives into common electronic devices and take them aboard US-bound flights.
“We know that our adversaries, terrorist groups in the United States and outside the United States, seek to bring down a US-bound airliner,” said Swalwell. “That’s one of their highest value targets. And we’re doing everything we can right now to prevent that from happening.”
None of the countries listed were those affected by US President Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban”. A Department of Homeland Security official told CNBC that the administration “did not target specific nations. We relied on evaluated intelligence to determine which airports were affected.”
The measures were first announced by Royal Jordanian Airlines in a tweet on Monday afternoon stating that the ban would be carried out “following instructions from the concerned US departments,” without naming a specific department. The tweet has since been deleted.
The United Kingdom has also issued similar restrictions following consultations with American security officials, banning in-flight electronics on flights from Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Tunisia.
