Air France cancelled several passenger flights to the United States over Christmas after US officials passed on ”credible” security threats involving passengers scheduled to fly to Los Angeles on flights from Paris, US and European officials said.
Six flights scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday were cancelled — three headed to Los Angeles, and the three return flights to Paris.
US officials have repeatedly warned that al-Qaeda terrorists may be eyeing Los Angeles International airport, one of the busiest in the world.
US officials were in intense security talks with officials from several other countries, too, as intelligence concerns about possible plans by al-Qaeda to use aircraft to attack American targets again intensified.
One industry official, who asked not to be identified, said a Mexican airline, Aeromexico, was another focus of US concern.
In the US, security officials closely watched activity at airports, train stations and public buildings, while police randomly stopped cars near the US capitol. Officials also have expressed concern that terrorists may try to use a biological, chemical or radiological weapon, and have installed more sensors around urban areas to detect dangerous microbes in the air.
A spokesperson for French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said the decision to cancel the flights came early on Wednesday after American authorities notified France that ”two or three” suspicious people, possibly Tunisian nationals, were planning to board the flights.
Raffarin requested the cancellations based on information ”gathered in the framework of French-American cooperation in the fight against terrorism, and which was of a nature that threatened the safety of these flights,” his office said in a statement.
His spokesperson said the US had threatened to refuse the planes permission to land in Los Angeles if they took off. The French Interior Ministry also said the flights were cancelled at the request of the US embassy in Paris.
US officials refused to confirm that they had made the request, leaving the question of who actually ordered the cancellations unclear.
The French Interior Ministry declined to say whether there was a specific threat against an aircraft. But terror alert levels in the US and France have been elevated in recent weeks.
No more cancellations were expected, Raffarin’s spokesperson said.
French television station LCI reported that American authorities believed members of al-Qaeda may have been planning to board the planes. The Interior Ministry declined to comment on whether any al-Qaeda members figured into the incident.
The US handed French authorities the names of suspicious people who may have intended to board the flights but no people by those names went through airport security checks, the Interior Ministry said, adding that no arrests were made.
American officials said the US government was comparing data it had compiled on passengers preparing to board flights entering the US, as well as data on the flight crews on those flights, with terrorist watch lists it has compiled.
”We are looking at both passengers as well as flight crews,” the official said.
Officials from the US Homeland Security Department, including Secretary Tom Ridge, had been meeting with French officials in recent days over concerns about a possible terrorist attack.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell conferred by telephone on Wednesday afternoon with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin about the security situation. US officials declined to provide details but suggested concerns extended beyond the Air France flights.
A Homeland Security official in Washington, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said American officials had passed on to other governments a ”very credible threat” of possible attacks originating overseas.
US officials have been working to get foreign airlines to provide American officials with more passenger information on people aboard the flights that originate overseas and travel to the US, said an official who spoke earlier this week on condition of anonymity. France and Mexico were of particular concern in this regard, the official said.
Air France said it had arranged overnight accommodations for several hundred passengers.
Some passengers stranded in Paris searched for alternate flight options in hopes of reaching Los Angeles in time for Christmas.
”I feel fine about taking other flights, you’ve got to stick with it,” said Nigel Pickett, a tourist from London.
The cancellations came almost exactly two years after the arrest of so-called ”shoe bomber” Richard Reid.
Reid, a British convert to Islam, was arrested on December 22 2001 when he tried but failed to detonate explosives in his shoes on American Airlines flight number 63 from Paris to Miami. He was sentenced to life in prison.
At Los Angeles International airport, security had already been tightened to its highest level in two years. It has twice been targeted for attacks in recent years — a foiled bomb plot planned for around New Year’s Day 2000, and a shooting at a check-in counter that left three dead on July 4 last year. — Sapa-AP