If the reality has not hit home it will in the coming months.

Following the failed attempt by Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a major security review will take place across the world.

For many Muslim travellers this may mean they are singled out and questioned on a more regular basis. Some might say this reaction is over the top and authorities are already targeting Muslims in a stringent manner.

There are already major checks made into many people’s backgrounds and Muslim travellers regularly complain of being harassed at airports.

Asian Image has already featured countless reports from travellers of the tactics used by security forces in profiling and targeting Muslim travellers. But should we really be prepared for the unthinkable?

Are we really about to see separate queues for Muslim travellers at airports as some have suggested? Should we really be prepared to be searched and searched again because of, what remains, an isolated incident?

Would you complain if you are set aside and searched in front of others just because you are a Muslim?

What seems to have made authorities more determined is the apparent confession of the 23-year-old Nigerian, that there are “many more” with similar training ready to launch similar attacks.

This revelation had led many to call for more security at airports.

Whilst many Muslims will not mind having to go through extra security tests to ensure other passengers feel at ease boarding a flight others may find the intrusion even more evidence of a state intent on making suspects out of everyone and anyone.

In the past some profiling targeted the way people behaved and looked what we are about to experience is one which looks intently on your religion.

Yet, there are important questions to be raised as to how we proceed.

Do we realise that more checks were in fact inevitable or is there a sense that the authorities will use this latest incident to target a higher number of Muslims?

And this may include those who not only travel on airplanes but also those who work in the industry.

If we have not already done so, we about to see a new set of rules and guidelines, which sees many people, deemed as suspects despite them being completely innocent.

There is no doubt that anyone who wishes to blow up an airliner does not differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Yet, the actions of a tiny minority are again about to have dire consequences for a wider community.

So, like it or not, the age of surveillance and terror profiling is about to reach a sinister new level.