Air France resumes LA flights

PARIS: Air France on Friday resumed flights between Paris and Los Angeles after a two-day suspension sparked by US fears that some of the planes might be used for a Christmas attack by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network.

The alert was raised Wednesday, when US officials relayed what they said was specific intelligence that those flights could be used for attacks similar to the ones on September 11, 2001.

The French government reacted by immediately cancelling the six flights — three of them to Los Angeles and three on the return to Paris — and carefully screening the passengers stranded in the French capital, but found no evidence linking any of them to any terror plot. Police told AFP Friday that all the passengers had been checked, and that those who failed to turn up for check-in “are not being subjected to any special attention by any service whatsoever.”

A source with France’s anti-terrorist police unit told AFP Thursday that the focus of the US warning was a Tunisian man with a pilot’s licence listed on one of the passenger lists. —AFP

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