Terror Concerns Trigger Security Talks

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=716&e=6&u=/ap/20031225/ap_on_re_us/terror_threat

<snip>A spokesman for French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said the decision to cancel the flights came early Wednesday after American authorities notified France that "two or three" suspicious people, possibly Tunisian nationals, were planning to board the flights.


The French Interior ministry said the United States 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, and no arrests were made. French television station LCI reported that U.S. authorities believed members of al-Qaida may have been planning to board the planes.

It was unclear who ordered the cancellations. The Interior Ministry said the flights were canceled at the request of the U.S. Embassy in Paris. A spokesman for Raffarin said the United States had threatened to refuse the planes permission to land if they took off. But U.S. officials refused to confirm that they had requested the cancellations.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department had been meeting with French officials in recent days over concerns about a possible terrorist attack.

On Thursday, however, French justice and law enforcement officials said they found little evidence that terrorists were planning to use U.S.-bound aircraft to launch attacks against American targets.