Agence France Presse December 24, 2003
US tightens air security, braces for possible holiday terror attacks
By Patrick Anidjar
Three Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles were cancelled Wednesday as security was tightened on flights bound for the United States where the authorities are on high alert for a terror attacks by the al-Qaeda network.
US authorities are investigating a threat to Air France flights to Los Angeles that prompted the cancellation of the three flights Wednesday, law enforcement sources said.
The flights were cancelled after the US embassy in Paris warned it feared they might be used for terrorist attacks, Interior Ministry officials in the French capital said. A top-level ministerial meeting was called to consider the embassy alert.
Officials in Los Angeles said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security were probing an unspecified threat, but refused to dilvulge specific details.
The alert came as US authorities stepped up surveillance on all flights arriving in the United States. The government on Sunday raised the nation's terrorist threat level from "elevated," or yellow, to "high," or orange.
The five level alert system was introduced after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington two years ago which left about 3,000 dead.
"The threat is much higher this time," Brian Doyle, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told AFP. "The intelligence is telling us that there are some forms of infiltration from al-Qaeda."
US watchdogs were fine-combing worst-case terror scenarios, including the possibility that al-Qaeda members had become pilots for foreign airlines.
"It is a concern," said Doyle. "We are always looking for a crack in security that terrorists could take advantage of. We are looking hard into it. Today all pilots, including domestic pilots, are going through a very serious security check."
A spokesman for NORAD, the North American Aerospace Command that monitors the skies over Canada, Alaska and the contiguous 48 states, said fighter pilots in both countries were on high alert.
Tuesday, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned Americans that they would be seeing reinforced air patrols, particularly around sensitive installations in the greater capital area.
Frequent patrols of Black Hawk helicopters in formations of twos and threes were seen flying low over Washington.
Major airports in New York, Washington and Las Vegas, were also under particularly heightened surveillance, reflecting the massive movement of passengers during the end of year holiday season.
NBC television, quoting US officials, reported that al-Qaeda operatives were believed to be planning to hijack foreign airliners for attacks.
These officials, who spoke anonymously, said US intelligence had pinpointed the numbers of the foreign flights most liable to be commandeered by pilots recruited directly by al-Qaeda or sympathetic to the agenda of its leader Osama bin Laden.
NBC said huge oil installations at Port Valdez in Alaska, and nuclear generating plants and dams were possible targets for hijacked airliners commandeered by suicidal pilots.
John Pike, head of GlobalSecurity.org, a security think tank, speculated that would-be suicide hijackers could set their sights on commercial cargo planes and private jets, which are normally subject to a lower level of security than passenger airliners.
"The notion that al-Qaeda could have recruited pilots or infiltrated pilots is certainly plausible today," said Pike.
© Copyright 2003, Agence France Presse
