Al-Qaida targeted Las Vegas, U.S. says
By John Mintz and John Burgess
Washington Post
WASHINGTON — U.S. government officials said yesterday that they believe some of the passengers boarding one of three Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles that were canceled because of security concerns Wednesday might have intended to hijack it and crash land in Las Vegas.
Police in Paris questioned 13 people who had checked in for two Air France flights that were canceled Christmas Eve because of a terror warning from U.S. authorities, but no evidence of wrongdoing was found, the French Interior Ministry said. All 13 were released.
But U.S. officials said they remain suspicious about some passengers who did not show up to claim their seats on the ultimately aborted Flight 68 from Paris to Los Angeles. One of those who did not appear for the flight apparently is a trained pilot, one U.S. official said.
"We still have an interest in talking to those people who didn't show up," said one U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation. "There might be more to come on this."
Despite French statements suggesting some American fears about the Air France flights were groundless, U.S. officials said they believe they might have averted a terrorist attack by arranging for the flights' cancellation.
Officials said they feared al-Qaida operatives planned to hijack one of the flights and use the plane as a missile to attack a site on or near its route.
In Paris, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced yesterday that Air France would operate its normal schedule today.
"The grounded flights can be resumed," he said in a statement.
U.S. officials have said that they passed on to the French government names of travelers they suspected might commandeer the planes on the Paris-Los Angeles route in a terror attack.
Seven of the questioned people had checked in at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for Air France flight 68 on Christmas Eve, according to a French official. He identified them as four Americans, one German, one French citizen and one Belgian.
The people were taken aside and questioned by police, the official said. Their baggage was searched. But no sign of terror connections was found, he said, and all had been released by 7 a.m. Paris time yesterday morning.
Six other passengers who showed up for Flight 70 to Los Angeles also were questioned and released.
The French official called the cancellations a "non-event." He added, "There is no danger ... And if there was any, specific measures would be taken."
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, American civilian and military air traffic controllers on the ground scrutinize the routes flown by commercial and other aircraft to ensure they do not stray from their flight plans.
For this reason, U.S. officials believe it is unlikely that terrorists might try to divert an Air France Paris-to-Los Angeles flight to a city far from its flight path, such as New York.
The Air France flights in question cross the Hudson Bay and eastern Canada before dipping down to airspace over Minnesota, and then taking a southwestern swing toward southern California.
"The only big city near this route is Las Vegas, which they would consider a nice attractive target," one government official said.
The al-Qaida network has long considered Las Vegas to be one of its top targets for a strike because it sees the city as a citadel of licentiousness, American officials said. In recent days officials said that the intelligence that led to the government's Dec. 21 imposition of the orange or "high risk" terror alert included references to possible al-Qaida interest in Las Vegas.
