Sen. Angus King (I-Maine)
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) says he has "very serious" fears about the security of the Sochi Olympics, given tensions between Islamists and the Russian government.
"And of course, the reality, Candy, is today terrorism is so hard to detect," Sen. King told CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley on Sunday.
"There's a guy in the Middle East now who's working on the design of a totally non-metallic bomb. And you know, that kind of thing, it's -- I don't know how you do it, frankly, when you have thousands and thousands of people, and people milling around. You know, we could have prevented the attack at the Boston Marathon by having 20,000 troops shoulder-to-shoulder on the road.
"But this is a real challenge for the Russians. ...If I were them, I would be advising and working with every intelligence agency in the world as thoroughly as possible to try to prevent something from happening."
King said he would not go to Sochi, "and I don't think I would send my family.
"I don't know how you put a percentage on it, but it's just such a rich target in an area of the world that has, you know, they've almost broadcast that they're going to try to do something there. I'd be -- it would be a stretch, I think, to say I'm going to send my family over."
King said he's also "kind of worried" about security at the World Cup in Brazil.
"I think these kinds of concerns are going to be heightened as we go into this uncertain world where all it takes is one guy with a bomb."
Press reports said the underwear bomb that failed to detonate on a flight into Detroit on Christmas day in 2009 had no metallic parts.
In May 2012, the Associated Press reported that al-Qaida bomb makers in Yemen had developed a "sophisticated new, nonmetallic underwear bomb" that was intercepted by the CIA.
And just last month, the BBC reported that bomb-makers in Yemen "are determined to develop ever harder-to-detect devices to smuggle on board planes bound for Western countries."