Six international flights from the United Kingdom and France and Continental Airlines Flight 1519 from Washington to Houston, site of the Super Bowl, were grounded Sunday and today after security concerns were raised by the Homeland Security Department.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said current intelligence does not indicate any more threats against specific flights.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said there was "specific and credible intelligence information suggesting that al-Qaida would attack these flights on those dates."

"It wasn’t as specific as to method of attack," he said.

The cancellations were the first since December, when the nation’s terror alert level was increased to high, or orange.

The Continental flight was the first domestic flight to be canceled. Roehrkasse declined to provide details about the nature of the threat but said the federal agency and Continental "worked closely on the matter."

The flight was scheduled to take off from Dulles International Airport outside Washington at 5:45 p.m. EST yesterday and arrive at Bush Intercontinental Airport at 8:10 p.m. CST.

The National Football League’s Super Bowl was played Sunday evening at Reliant Stadium, approximately 27 miles from the Houston airport. However, a U.S. government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the flight cancellation was not specifically connected to the Super Bowl.

Continental spokesman David Messing said he did not know what security concerns led to the cancellation. He said the decision to ground the flight was made "because we were unable to get security clearance from the Department of Homeland Security."

A Continental Airlines flight yesterday from Glasgow, Scotland, to Los Angeles with an intermediate stop in Newark, N.J., was canceled late Saturday because of security concerns, but there was no indication whether that was related to the Washington-Houston cancellation announced late Sunday.

The Scotland-Los Angeles flight was one of six U.S.-bound flights canceled yesterday and today because of security concerns. The U.S. government said it had fresh indications of al-Qaida’s continued interest in targeting commercial planes flying to the United States.