LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Air France canceled several flights to the United States after U.S. officials, on heightened alert for terror attacks over the holiday, passed on "credible" security threats involving passengers scheduled to fly to Los Angeles on flights from Paris, U.S. and European officials said Wednesday.
U.S. officials were in intense security talks with officials from several other countries, too, as intelligence concerns about possible plans by the al-Qaida terror network to use aircraft to attack American targets again intensified.
A spokesman for French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said the decision to cancel the six Air France flights came early Wednesday after American authorities notified France that "two or three" suspicious people, possibly Tunisian nationals, were planning to board the flights.
A senior U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "people were going to be on the flights that they (French officials) did not want entering the country."
The French Interior Ministry said the flights were canceled at the request of the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
French television station LCI reported that American authorities believed members of al-Qaida may have been planning to board the planes. The Interior Ministry declined to comment on whether any al-Qaida members figured into the incident.
The FBI (news - web sites) was taking the potential threats "very seriously," LCI said.
The United States handed French authorities the names of suspicious people who may have intended to board the flights but no people by those names went through airport security checks, the Interior Ministry said, adding that no arrests were made.