Another smart country not falling for American *****!!!!
France Finds No Terror
Links On Axed Flights
By Catherine Bremer
12-25-03
PARIS (Reuters) - Fears of a Christmas Day September 11-style attack
eased on Thursday after checks by French intelligence on passenger
lists turned up no terror links on any of six canceled Air France
flights.
A spokeswoman at the French prime minister's office said no formal
inquiry was under way and no arrests had been made in connection with
Wednesday's cancellation of six flights between Paris and Los Angeles.
"We have not detected passengers with the profile of people belonging
to a radical Islamic group," a source close to French investigating
judges that deal with terrorism told Reuters.
"All the checks so far have come to nothing," he said.
An Air France spokeswoman said flights to Los Angeles would resume on
Friday as normal. Two flights were due to leave Paris on Friday -- one
at midday, the second an evening flight to Tahiti with a stopover in
Los Angeles.
Two return flights from Los Angeles to Paris were also to depart as
normal, she said.
The source said France's DST counter-intelligence service checked
passenger lists of U.S.-bound Christmas flights after a tip from U.S.
intelligence.
A U.S. official said "credible, reliable" intelligence reports had
been relayed to France saying extremist groups were planning
"near-term simultaneous attacks" that could be on a scale of the
September 11 attacks, which Washington blames on al Qaeda.
The DST questioned a number of people, but found no evidence of
members of radical Islamist groups among them.
The only person named by U.S. Intelligence as a suspect, a Tunisian
man with a pilot's license, was still in Tunisia and had no apparent
plans to leave the country, the source said.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin decided to cancel the
flights in question, even though the DST's checks were negative, in
order to eliminate any trace of risk, he added.
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