Two passengers on board the doomed flight had names that appeared on a classified list of radical Muslims
By Jonathan Harwood
FIRST POSTED JUNE 10, 2009
The names of two passengers on the doomed Air France flight AF447 which crashed into the Atlantic last week appeared on classified French documents listing radical Muslims considered to be a threat, raising the spectre that terrorists may have been involved in the disaster that killed 228 people.
The discovery was made by a team from the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE) - the French equivalent of MI6 - sent to South America to go through the list of those who boarded the Airbus 330 in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, May 31.
Agents are trying to establish dates of birth and family connections of the two passengers to see if they are the same people listed in the documents. A security service source told the French media that while there was a possibility the name similarities were a “macabre coincidence”,
they were being “taken very seriously”.
Despite the finding, Air France maintains that “all the indications” are that the Airbus suffered some kind of catastrophic equipment failure. Investigators are focusing on the plane’s airspeed sensors which were giving faulty readings, according to automatic data alerts sent by the plane during its final minutes in the air.
A total of 41 bodies have so far been recovered from the crash zone 700 miles off Brazil’s north-east coast. The plane’s tail fin has also been recovered - an important discovery as it could narrow the underwater search for the ‘black box’ flight recorders. A French nuclear submarine and a naval vessel containing robot submarines are expected to reach the crash site this week and begin searching the ocean bed for the two recorders.
Meanwhile, a memorial service is to be held at Trinity College, Dublin for the three Irish doctors killed in the crash. Eithne Walls, 28, from Ballygowan, County Down, died along with her friends Aisling Butler, from Roscrea, County Tipperary, and Jane Deasy from Dublin.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/48739,news,possible-air-france-terror-link-unearthed
Thank you for the ping West Coast Gal and noted.
(Excerpted)
And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
President Barack Hussein Obama, The University of Cairo, June 2009
With the past three months, President Barack Obama has initiated volcanic policies that will produce an enormous sea change in America’s relationship with Israel and the Muslim world.