New Concern Is Expressed About Flights From Abroad

New Concern Is Expressed About Flights From Abroad

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: January 31, 2004

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — American officials said on Friday that they had received new information in recent days pointing to the possibility of an international hijacking and were considering the grounding of several flights from England and France over the weekend as a result.
Officials said terrorist intelligence that they considered "specific and credible" raised particular concerns about British Airways flights from London to Washington and Air France flights. Officials would not disclose the Air France flights but said they were not on the Paris-to-Los Angeles route on which flights were grounded in December.
"It's very similar to what we saw over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and a repeat of that situation — with the cancellation of some flights — is a high probability," a law enforcement official said.
There were no cancellations as of Friday night, officials said.
At the end of December, United States officials became so alarmed about the threat of an international hijacking that they raised the nation's threat status to "orange," or high risk. Numerous flights into and out of the United States on British Airways, Air France and Aeromexico were canceled or subjected to extraordinary security measures. One flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles turned around in mid-flight because American officials were not satisfied that passengers and baggage had been properly screened.
The threat level was lowered on Jan. 9 to "yellow."
This week, a "re-scrubbing" of intelligence gleaned from the orange alert, along with new intelligence developed from an informant, again raised the specter of an international aviation attack, the law enforcement official said. The threats, corroborated by other sources, including information on specific flights.
"We remain concerned," said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, "about Al Qaeda's desire to target aviation, especially international aviation." But he said there were no plans to elevate the threat status.


Will these "threats" become more and more frequent as the election comes closer ? IMO the only thing Bush has going for him is the "war on terrorism". Are these alerts real or the administrations way of keeping the population focused upon it?.