flyblue
26th Dec 2003, 23:52
6 Flights Canceled as Signs of Terror Plot Point to L.A.
Investigators have an 'informed belief' that several men in France with ties to Al Qaeda, one a trained pilot, wanted to hijack a jet.
By Sebastian Rotella, Josh Meyer and Greg Krikorian, Times Staff Writers
The French government on Wednesday canceled six Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles after U.S. intelligence warned that as many as half a dozen passengers on one flight might be Al Qaeda or Taliban terrorists, authorities said. Top U.S. security officials said the cancellations may have foiled a Christmas Eve attack on an unspecified target in Los Angeles.
Details remained cloudy, but U.S. counterterrorism officials said their investigation was focusing on the "informed belief" that about six men on Air France Flight 68, from Paris to Los Angeles, may have been planning to hijack the plane and crash it near
Los Angeles, or along the way. That belief, according to several senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, was based on reliable and corroborated information from several sources. Some of the men had the same names as suspected members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the officials said. One of the men is believed to be a trained pilot with a commercial license, a senior U.S. security official said. Law enforcement and intelligence officials in the United States said the information of a pending attack on Los Angeles prompted the federal Department of Homeland Security last week to ratchet up the nation's terror alert level to the second-highest level. "This whole thing is the reason we got bumped up to orange," the senior U.S. security official said.
Motivated by fear of a major attack on the United States, hundreds of U.S. intelligence operatives and law enforcement officials around the globe worked on high alert, scouring intercepted communications and interviewing informants.
Intelligence officials characterized the effort, which culminated in the flight cancellations, as a nerve-racking race against time.
U.S. law enforcement officials said authorities at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris detained some of the approximately 200 passengers and crew from Flight 68 for questioning. There were conflicting reports about whether any of them were taken
into custody. It also was unclear late Wednesday whether the men being sought had boarded the flight or were "scared off" by reports that Los Angeles had been identified as a possible target, a U.S. intelligence source said. One official said at least six suspicious men were detained in Paris after checking in for the flight. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators became interested in the flight after intercepted "chatter" among suspected terrorists led U.S.
intelligence to believe an attack might be imminent. The chatter included a specific reference to Flight 68, according to one federal law enforcement source. The flightarrives daily at Los Angeles International Airport at 4:05 p.m. Tom Ridge, the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, has warned that Al Qaeda might attempt to use airplanes against U.S. targets, as it did on Sept. 11, 2001.
When FBI counterterrorism agents began reviewing Wednesday's manifest for Flight 68, they discovered that the passenger list included at least one name similar to that of a person linked to the Taliban and others with names linked to Al Qaeda, sources
said. "What are the odds that you would get that many hits if there was nothing going on?" asked one counterterrorism official.
With that information, U.S. authorities contacted French intelligence about the possibility that suspected terrorists might be on the flight. They prevailed upon Air France to cancel Flight 68, as well as other flights bound for Los Angeles, because
the original intelligence information warned of more than one jet being commandeered. The cancellations were announced by the office of French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which said the action was "based on information in the process of verification obtained as a result of Franco-American cooperation against terrorism." French officials seemed to go out of their way to emphasize that cooperation, notable in light of the tense relations between the two countries since the U.S. decided to go
to war in Iraq. Said Nathalie Loiseau, press counselor in the French embassy in Washington: "The decision to cancel flights of course is not an easy decision, but it is easy to take when there is a threat…. Our American counterparts do believe there is a serious threat and that is enough. They are our partners in the war on terrorism, and this time the information is coming from the American authorities and we believe them." French investigators would not say whether arrests had been made. They would only say that U.S. and French investigators were working together and that the passengers and crew on the Air France flights had been subjected to close scrutiny. Interrogations and searches of passengers' baggage were still underway Wednesday night at Charles de Gaulle Airport, authorities said. "We have looked at everyone on these flights carefully," a French law enforcement official said. The potential threat "is consistent with" recent warnings by the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security of Al Qaeda plots to use planes as weapons, the official said. "Everybody is taking this very seriously," the French official said. "It's consistent with the concern about an increased threat of targeting by Al Qaeda."
Altogether, six flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Wednesday and today were affected. Three round-trip flights were canceled: Flights 68, 69 and 70, which wasscheduled to stop in Tahiti. Air France scrambled to find passengers seats on other carriers, but the cancellations forced some people to delay travel by a day or more. U.S. officials said they also were concerned that other flights heading toward Los Angeles at the same time, including one from Mexico, also might be targets of
planned Al Qaeda hijackings. But they stressed that the information was not as specific and credible as the intelligence indicating that Flight 68 was targeted for a takeover.
Unusual precautions had been taken Tuesday when Air France Flight 68 — the flight at the center of the investigation Wednesday — arrived at LAX, a government official said. The plane was not allowed to dock at the terminal, but instead was escorted by law enforcement personnel to a remote hangar at the west end of the airport for special screening of passengers and baggage. "There was a police presence around the plane, including FBI and customs agents, and there was screening at a level comparable with what we would do on an outbound flight," the official said. U.S. officials would not discuss where their information about the threat came from, except to say that it was repeated by multiple sources and was independently verified
and corroborated. "There was little doubt in anybody's mind that L.A. was the target of this one," said one senior U.S. counterterrorism official involved in the investigation. "We believed they were going to take the aircraft over [to the West Coast] and that they were going to fly it into something in L.A."
That official and two others who confirmed the scenario said, however, that they did not have many specifics, such as what the ultimate target would be, how the men planned to take over the plane and whether other planes might be targeted for
hijackings as well. Another federal law enforcement source said authorities had not developed any evidence of a specific plot associated with the takeover of the jets or any specific targets in Los Angeles, although LAX has long been considered a prime target of Al Qaeda. A suspected Al Qaeda member was arrested at the Canadian border in December 1999, part of an alleged plot to attack LAX with explosives. The airport is considered a tempting target for symbolic and strategic reasons. Any attack on the airport, which serves approximately 150,000 travelers a day during the holiday season, probably would yield a large number of casualties. Another possible theory, however, is that a hijacked flight from Europe or Mexico could have been used at other locations that have recently turned up in intelligence
reports as potential targets. These include Las Vegas and the massive oil port at Valdez, Alaska. "Who knows what they were going to do after they took the plane?" the senior U.S. official said. But, he added, "Everything we have been told is that this is legit and that it is good" intelligence. Added a second U.S. counterterrorism official: "The names were one issue, but there
were other indications pointing to Los Angeles and these flights. So when you combined it with these names, it added another layer of apprehensiveness." A third U.S. official said authorities hoped to uncover details in the coming days. But he said all available intelligence clearly indicated that a hijacking plot was in the works. "There's a fair chance we dodged a bullet today," an FBI counterterrorism official said. The cancellation of the flights was extraordinary even though France's anti-terrorist forces are among the most aggressive in Europe. Islamic terror networks have an entrenched presence in France and have plotted attacks there, including a plan to hit the U.S. embassy in Paris that was broken up in the fall of 2001. Al Qaeda and its affiliates often return to strategies and targets they have pursued in the past.
Moreover, the concerns of French and U.S. authorities have a precedent: the attempt on Dec. 22, 2001, by Al Qaeda operative Richard Reid to down a Paris-to-Miami flight with explosives packed into his basketball shoes. Reid, whom French police
permitted to board a flight after intense questioning, was convicted of that plot in U.S. federal court this year. Just last month, British police arrested an alleged associate of Reid, a Briton of Pakistani descent named Sajid Badat, on terrorism charges. Investigators found a pair of socks connected with string that they believe Badat, who allegedly has ties to Al Qaeda,
fashioned into a device he intended to drape over his shoulders in order to smuggle plastic explosives onto a plane, according to French and British investigators. Of particular interest in the current investigation are fears expressed by U.S. officials that Al Qaeda has infiltrated flight crews on unnamed foreign airlines. French authorities have wrestled with the delicate problem that a number of airport and airline employees are French Muslims. After the Sept. 11 attacks, authorities at Charles de Gaulle Airport investigated and removed from duty an air traffic controller of North African descent whom they
suspected of having become a radical Islamist. The controller complained that he was persecuted because of his religion and ethnicity. The Air France cancellations were the most dramatic manifestations of heightened security concerns in the United States, but not the only ones. The Delta Airlines terminal at La Guardia Airport in New York was evacuated Wednesday evening after a woman set off a metal detector and then failed to stop for further security screening. About 10 Delta flights at LaGuardia were delayed by a brief evacuation, with delays ranging from 30 to 80 minutes, said Delta spokesman Joshua Smith. Delta shares planes on some routes with Air France, but Smith said the evacuation was "an isolated incident" apparently unrelated to the terror investigation. Also Wednesday, federal aviation officials imposed flight restrictions around downtown Chicago for the third time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The restrictions, which generally bar small aircraft from flying over the area without
special permission, were imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration at noon Chicago time and will remain in effect until further notice, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.
The FAA did so at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, but no additional details were available, she said.
Similar restrictions were imposed over the Chicago area immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, and again last spring when terrorism fears escalated, she said. Even if authorities make arrests in the Air France investigation, one FBI official
cautioned against overconfidence. "This threat was pretty specific," the official said. "It's not the only threat".
Air France reprend ses vols Paris-L.A. après l'alerte terroriste
26 décembre 17:23:23
PARIS - Air France a repris vendredi ses vols entre Paris et Los Angeles après une suspension de deux jours provoquée par une menace terroriste transmise par les autorités américaines.
Le vol AF068 initialement prévu à 13h45 a décollé vers 16h15 de l'aéroport de Roissy-Charles de Gaulle avec un retard de deux heures et demie lié aux "contrôles" de sécurité, a précisé à Reuters une porte-parole de la compagnie française.
Les policiers français n'ont pas eu confirmation pour le moment de la menace à bord d'avions reliant Paris à Los Angeles, qui avait conduit le gouvernement français à annuler six vols Air France, sur requête des autorités américaines.
"Pour la sécurité des personnes, nous reprendrions des mesures spécifiques si la situation l'exigeait", a déclaré le Premier ministre Jean-Pierre Raffarin jeudi soir à l'issue d'une réunion avec ses collaborateurs sur l'actualité internationale et les questions de sécurité.
"Toutes les vérifications conduites jusqu'ici n'ont rien amené. Elles se sont avérées négatives", a déclaré à Reuters un magistrat spécialisé dans la lutte antiterroriste.
A Matignon, on a précisé que "rien d'anormal" n'avait été découvert lors des interrogatoires de passagers et de la fouille des bagages.
NEUF PASSAGERS INTERROGES
Les enquêteurs de la DST ont notamment entendu neuf passagers du vol AF068 qui devait quitter Paris à 13h35 mercredi - quatre Américains, deux Allemands, un Français, un Algérien et un Belge. Tous ont été laissés en liberté après les vérifications d'usage.
En début de semaine, les services de renseignement américains avaient transmis à la direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST) une alerte faisant état de possibles projets de détournement d'avions sur les liaisons Paris-Los Angeles, Paris-Papeete, avec escale à Los Angeles, ou Paris-Newark.
Les Américains faisaient état de communications interceptées entre des suspects, qui, selon eux, laissaient supposer l'existence de ces projets d'attentats.
Un seul nom a toutefois été fourni par Washington, celui d'un Tunisien titulaire d'une licence de pilote et qui aurait été susceptible d'embarquer à bord d'un vol à Paris pour commettre un attentat.
La DST a établi que cet homme se trouvait actuellement en Tunisie et qu'il n'avait pas l'intention de prendre un avion en France.
Le Quai d'Orsay a fait savoir jeudi que le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Dominique de Villepin, s'était entretenu à ce sujet mercredi après-midi par téléphone avec le secrétaire d'Etat américain Colin Powell.
Investigators have an 'informed belief' that several men in France with ties to Al Qaeda, one a trained pilot, wanted to hijack a jet.
By Sebastian Rotella, Josh Meyer and Greg Krikorian, Times Staff Writers
The French government on Wednesday canceled six Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles after U.S. intelligence warned that as many as half a dozen passengers on one flight might be Al Qaeda or Taliban terrorists, authorities said. Top U.S. security officials said the cancellations may have foiled a Christmas Eve attack on an unspecified target in Los Angeles.
Details remained cloudy, but U.S. counterterrorism officials said their investigation was focusing on the "informed belief" that about six men on Air France Flight 68, from Paris to Los Angeles, may have been planning to hijack the plane and crash it near
Los Angeles, or along the way. That belief, according to several senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, was based on reliable and corroborated information from several sources. Some of the men had the same names as suspected members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the officials said. One of the men is believed to be a trained pilot with a commercial license, a senior U.S. security official said. Law enforcement and intelligence officials in the United States said the information of a pending attack on Los Angeles prompted the federal Department of Homeland Security last week to ratchet up the nation's terror alert level to the second-highest level. "This whole thing is the reason we got bumped up to orange," the senior U.S. security official said.
Motivated by fear of a major attack on the United States, hundreds of U.S. intelligence operatives and law enforcement officials around the globe worked on high alert, scouring intercepted communications and interviewing informants.
Intelligence officials characterized the effort, which culminated in the flight cancellations, as a nerve-racking race against time.
U.S. law enforcement officials said authorities at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris detained some of the approximately 200 passengers and crew from Flight 68 for questioning. There were conflicting reports about whether any of them were taken
into custody. It also was unclear late Wednesday whether the men being sought had boarded the flight or were "scared off" by reports that Los Angeles had been identified as a possible target, a U.S. intelligence source said. One official said at least six suspicious men were detained in Paris after checking in for the flight. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators became interested in the flight after intercepted "chatter" among suspected terrorists led U.S.
intelligence to believe an attack might be imminent. The chatter included a specific reference to Flight 68, according to one federal law enforcement source. The flightarrives daily at Los Angeles International Airport at 4:05 p.m. Tom Ridge, the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, has warned that Al Qaeda might attempt to use airplanes against U.S. targets, as it did on Sept. 11, 2001.
When FBI counterterrorism agents began reviewing Wednesday's manifest for Flight 68, they discovered that the passenger list included at least one name similar to that of a person linked to the Taliban and others with names linked to Al Qaeda, sources
said. "What are the odds that you would get that many hits if there was nothing going on?" asked one counterterrorism official.
With that information, U.S. authorities contacted French intelligence about the possibility that suspected terrorists might be on the flight. They prevailed upon Air France to cancel Flight 68, as well as other flights bound for Los Angeles, because
the original intelligence information warned of more than one jet being commandeered. The cancellations were announced by the office of French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which said the action was "based on information in the process of verification obtained as a result of Franco-American cooperation against terrorism." French officials seemed to go out of their way to emphasize that cooperation, notable in light of the tense relations between the two countries since the U.S. decided to go
to war in Iraq. Said Nathalie Loiseau, press counselor in the French embassy in Washington: "The decision to cancel flights of course is not an easy decision, but it is easy to take when there is a threat…. Our American counterparts do believe there is a serious threat and that is enough. They are our partners in the war on terrorism, and this time the information is coming from the American authorities and we believe them." French investigators would not say whether arrests had been made. They would only say that U.S. and French investigators were working together and that the passengers and crew on the Air France flights had been subjected to close scrutiny. Interrogations and searches of passengers' baggage were still underway Wednesday night at Charles de Gaulle Airport, authorities said. "We have looked at everyone on these flights carefully," a French law enforcement official said. The potential threat "is consistent with" recent warnings by the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security of Al Qaeda plots to use planes as weapons, the official said. "Everybody is taking this very seriously," the French official said. "It's consistent with the concern about an increased threat of targeting by Al Qaeda."
Altogether, six flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Wednesday and today were affected. Three round-trip flights were canceled: Flights 68, 69 and 70, which wasscheduled to stop in Tahiti. Air France scrambled to find passengers seats on other carriers, but the cancellations forced some people to delay travel by a day or more. U.S. officials said they also were concerned that other flights heading toward Los Angeles at the same time, including one from Mexico, also might be targets of
planned Al Qaeda hijackings. But they stressed that the information was not as specific and credible as the intelligence indicating that Flight 68 was targeted for a takeover.
Unusual precautions had been taken Tuesday when Air France Flight 68 — the flight at the center of the investigation Wednesday — arrived at LAX, a government official said. The plane was not allowed to dock at the terminal, but instead was escorted by law enforcement personnel to a remote hangar at the west end of the airport for special screening of passengers and baggage. "There was a police presence around the plane, including FBI and customs agents, and there was screening at a level comparable with what we would do on an outbound flight," the official said. U.S. officials would not discuss where their information about the threat came from, except to say that it was repeated by multiple sources and was independently verified
and corroborated. "There was little doubt in anybody's mind that L.A. was the target of this one," said one senior U.S. counterterrorism official involved in the investigation. "We believed they were going to take the aircraft over [to the West Coast] and that they were going to fly it into something in L.A."
That official and two others who confirmed the scenario said, however, that they did not have many specifics, such as what the ultimate target would be, how the men planned to take over the plane and whether other planes might be targeted for
hijackings as well. Another federal law enforcement source said authorities had not developed any evidence of a specific plot associated with the takeover of the jets or any specific targets in Los Angeles, although LAX has long been considered a prime target of Al Qaeda. A suspected Al Qaeda member was arrested at the Canadian border in December 1999, part of an alleged plot to attack LAX with explosives. The airport is considered a tempting target for symbolic and strategic reasons. Any attack on the airport, which serves approximately 150,000 travelers a day during the holiday season, probably would yield a large number of casualties. Another possible theory, however, is that a hijacked flight from Europe or Mexico could have been used at other locations that have recently turned up in intelligence
reports as potential targets. These include Las Vegas and the massive oil port at Valdez, Alaska. "Who knows what they were going to do after they took the plane?" the senior U.S. official said. But, he added, "Everything we have been told is that this is legit and that it is good" intelligence. Added a second U.S. counterterrorism official: "The names were one issue, but there
were other indications pointing to Los Angeles and these flights. So when you combined it with these names, it added another layer of apprehensiveness." A third U.S. official said authorities hoped to uncover details in the coming days. But he said all available intelligence clearly indicated that a hijacking plot was in the works. "There's a fair chance we dodged a bullet today," an FBI counterterrorism official said. The cancellation of the flights was extraordinary even though France's anti-terrorist forces are among the most aggressive in Europe. Islamic terror networks have an entrenched presence in France and have plotted attacks there, including a plan to hit the U.S. embassy in Paris that was broken up in the fall of 2001. Al Qaeda and its affiliates often return to strategies and targets they have pursued in the past.
Moreover, the concerns of French and U.S. authorities have a precedent: the attempt on Dec. 22, 2001, by Al Qaeda operative Richard Reid to down a Paris-to-Miami flight with explosives packed into his basketball shoes. Reid, whom French police
permitted to board a flight after intense questioning, was convicted of that plot in U.S. federal court this year. Just last month, British police arrested an alleged associate of Reid, a Briton of Pakistani descent named Sajid Badat, on terrorism charges. Investigators found a pair of socks connected with string that they believe Badat, who allegedly has ties to Al Qaeda,
fashioned into a device he intended to drape over his shoulders in order to smuggle plastic explosives onto a plane, according to French and British investigators. Of particular interest in the current investigation are fears expressed by U.S. officials that Al Qaeda has infiltrated flight crews on unnamed foreign airlines. French authorities have wrestled with the delicate problem that a number of airport and airline employees are French Muslims. After the Sept. 11 attacks, authorities at Charles de Gaulle Airport investigated and removed from duty an air traffic controller of North African descent whom they
suspected of having become a radical Islamist. The controller complained that he was persecuted because of his religion and ethnicity. The Air France cancellations were the most dramatic manifestations of heightened security concerns in the United States, but not the only ones. The Delta Airlines terminal at La Guardia Airport in New York was evacuated Wednesday evening after a woman set off a metal detector and then failed to stop for further security screening. About 10 Delta flights at LaGuardia were delayed by a brief evacuation, with delays ranging from 30 to 80 minutes, said Delta spokesman Joshua Smith. Delta shares planes on some routes with Air France, but Smith said the evacuation was "an isolated incident" apparently unrelated to the terror investigation. Also Wednesday, federal aviation officials imposed flight restrictions around downtown Chicago for the third time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The restrictions, which generally bar small aircraft from flying over the area without
special permission, were imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration at noon Chicago time and will remain in effect until further notice, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.
The FAA did so at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, but no additional details were available, she said.
Similar restrictions were imposed over the Chicago area immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, and again last spring when terrorism fears escalated, she said. Even if authorities make arrests in the Air France investigation, one FBI official
cautioned against overconfidence. "This threat was pretty specific," the official said. "It's not the only threat".
Air France reprend ses vols Paris-L.A. après l'alerte terroriste
26 décembre 17:23:23
PARIS - Air France a repris vendredi ses vols entre Paris et Los Angeles après une suspension de deux jours provoquée par une menace terroriste transmise par les autorités américaines.
Le vol AF068 initialement prévu à 13h45 a décollé vers 16h15 de l'aéroport de Roissy-Charles de Gaulle avec un retard de deux heures et demie lié aux "contrôles" de sécurité, a précisé à Reuters une porte-parole de la compagnie française.
Les policiers français n'ont pas eu confirmation pour le moment de la menace à bord d'avions reliant Paris à Los Angeles, qui avait conduit le gouvernement français à annuler six vols Air France, sur requête des autorités américaines.
"Pour la sécurité des personnes, nous reprendrions des mesures spécifiques si la situation l'exigeait", a déclaré le Premier ministre Jean-Pierre Raffarin jeudi soir à l'issue d'une réunion avec ses collaborateurs sur l'actualité internationale et les questions de sécurité.
"Toutes les vérifications conduites jusqu'ici n'ont rien amené. Elles se sont avérées négatives", a déclaré à Reuters un magistrat spécialisé dans la lutte antiterroriste.
A Matignon, on a précisé que "rien d'anormal" n'avait été découvert lors des interrogatoires de passagers et de la fouille des bagages.
NEUF PASSAGERS INTERROGES
Les enquêteurs de la DST ont notamment entendu neuf passagers du vol AF068 qui devait quitter Paris à 13h35 mercredi - quatre Américains, deux Allemands, un Français, un Algérien et un Belge. Tous ont été laissés en liberté après les vérifications d'usage.
En début de semaine, les services de renseignement américains avaient transmis à la direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST) une alerte faisant état de possibles projets de détournement d'avions sur les liaisons Paris-Los Angeles, Paris-Papeete, avec escale à Los Angeles, ou Paris-Newark.
Les Américains faisaient état de communications interceptées entre des suspects, qui, selon eux, laissaient supposer l'existence de ces projets d'attentats.
Un seul nom a toutefois été fourni par Washington, celui d'un Tunisien titulaire d'une licence de pilote et qui aurait été susceptible d'embarquer à bord d'un vol à Paris pour commettre un attentat.
La DST a établi que cet homme se trouvait actuellement en Tunisie et qu'il n'avait pas l'intention de prendre un avion en France.
Le Quai d'Orsay a fait savoir jeudi que le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Dominique de Villepin, s'était entretenu à ce sujet mercredi après-midi par téléphone avec le secrétaire d'Etat américain Colin Powell.