Air France Flights Land Amid Tight Security

Air France resumed flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Friday as U.S. counterterrorism officials maintained tight security measures here and elsewhere, warning that the threat remains of an Al Qaeda attack involving aircraft somewhere in the United States.

As the FBI dispatched more agents to France to investigate a suspected terror plot that may have been aborted, authorities at Los Angeles International Airport maintained the tightest security since Sept. 11, 2001, scouring several flights from France and Mexico for passengers or cargo that might suggest terrorism.

Just after 6:15 p.m. Friday, a contingent of federal agents and local authorities met Air France Flight 68 from Paris at a remote terminal at LAX. The flight, two hours late because of a security check at Charles De Gaulle Airport, was the first Air France jetliner from Paris in two days and had the flight number that initially had been cited by intelligence officials as a possible terrorist target.

Sandra Bydalek, 47, one of the first passengers from the plane to clear customs, said the day had begun with two body pat-downs at De Gaulle Airport, searches of her shoes, luggage and carry-ons and a wait of several hours. When Flight 68 touched down in Los Angeles, Bydalek said, applause broke out. Passengers then endured more searches -- screening by a metal detector, luggage inspections, and another pat-down, although not as thorough as the body search in Paris, she said.

It was the first of three flights Friday that authorities said would undergo additional security screening..

On Christmas evening, dozens of FBI agents, Los Angeles police and other law enforcement personnel also converged on Air Tahiti Nui Flight 21 from Paris, authorities said. After a three-hour security delay at De Gaulle Airport, officials said, that jetliner was held another five hours at LAX as a tactical weapons team and bomb technicians combed the aircraft, and counterterrorism investigators interviewed the flight’s 200 passengers and crew members in a remote terminal.

Hours later, the FBI, LAPD and other law enforcement officers also descended upon Aeromexico Flight 490, which arrived late Christmas Day from Mexico City. The aircraft and passengers on that flight, which originated in the Yucatan capital of Merida, also were thoroughly examined.

Earlier in the week, counterterrorism officials told The Times that authorities were paying special attention to Los Angeles-bound flights by Air France, Aeromexico and Air Tahiti Nui for fear that they could be exploited by Al Qaeda. It was unclear how that information had been developed, though officials said it had been part of a recent intelligence analysis. The analysis concluded that four cities could figure into the terrorism plans of extremists: Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Valdez, Alaska; and Rappahannock, Va. (One high-ranking U.S. intelligence official speculated that, because of its relative obscurity, the Virginia location could actually have been a potential meeting place, rather than a target of Islamic militants.)

Officials in those areas launched enhanced security measures days before Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced Sunday that the nation would move to an orange alert, the second-highest level of warning about potential attacks.

Since the increase in the alert level, U.S. officials have voiced concern that extremists might use aircraft to launch another attack on the country.

In Mexico, a spokesman for President Vicente Fox said Friday that although the U.S. had asked for increased cooperation on security at airports, seaports and the border, the government had received no intelligence from the U.S. about a specific threat.

The reason for the additional measures “is that Mexico shares a border with the United States, and Mexico doesn’t want to become a trampoline for attacks against the United States or any other country,” said the spokesman, Agustine Gutierrez Canet.

On Christmas Eve, French officials halted six Air France flights scheduled to fly into LAX over a period of two days. The action was taken after intelligence reports picked up “chatter” that indicated several Air France flights, including the daily Flight 68, might be targeted for hijacking by Islamic extremists. The FBI subsequently found about a dozen names of individuals on two Air France passenger lists for Christmas Eve, including that for Flight 68, that were similar to the names of people associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, according to U.S. counterterrorism sources.

Although French investigators interviewed and released an unknown number of passengers with tickets for the scheduled Air France flights Wednesday, they said no one had been arrested and no signs of a terrorist threat had been uncovered.

Nonetheless, U.S. counterterrorism officials remained convinced that they might have disrupted an Al Qaeda plan for an attack, noting that not all of the ticketed passengers had showed up at Charles De Gaulle Airport for the Air France flights.

“There were some pretty serious indications of an attack, not only from intelligence but based on some pretty suspicious folks” ticketed for the flight, one counterterrorism official said late Friday. “It was more than a hunch.”

Underscoring U.S. suspicions, the FBI was planning Friday to send agents to Paris to continue intensive investigation.

“Even if we did disrupt something the other day, we know that Al Qaeda is not going to stop,” one counterterrorism official said Friday.

For almost a week, authorities have fretted that recent intelligence has made it clear Al Qaeda is preparing a new attack somewhere in the U.S., though the precise nature of the plan has remained frustratingly unclear. “There has been no event-specific information,” said one counterterrorism official close to the investigation.

Although Los Angeles and the other cities remained on high alert, authorities said Friday that they were not aware of any new information in recent days suggesting increased attack potential.

In Nevada, for example, the state’s director of homeland security, Jerry Bussell, said Friday that -- beyond the initial alert more than a week ago -- authorities there had not been given any additional details to suggest that terrorists were targeting Las Vegas.

“Secretary Ridge called our governor on Christmas Eve,” Bussell said, and assured the Nevada executive that Ridge would call again, in person, if there were anything new the governor needed to know. There had been no second call, he said. “It would seem to me that -- if the safety of the people of Nevada were at immediate risk -- that they would be telling the governor.”

At the same time, Bussell said that federal, state and local authorities in Nevada remained on high alert, mindful that Las Vegas has been seen as a potential target, particularly on New Year’s Eve, when several hundred thousand revelers will crowd the downtown strip

Similarly, increased precautions were in effect in Valdez, Alaska, where oil from the trans-Alaska pipeline is loaded aboard tankers. Each day, the pipeline produces an estimated 1 million barrels of oil, or about 18% of the nation’s daily demand.

More than a week ago, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Anchorage launched new security measures to safeguard the pipeline as well as communications and other potential targets in the vast expanse of Alaska, said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Robert Burnham.

“We have been working on our response to this potential threat for days,” he said, adding, “There has been nothing new to cause us to diminish our response.”

Last year, the FBI, Department of Defense and other law enforcement officials in Alaska staged a three-day training exercise based, in part, on the possibility of a terrorist attack on the pipeline. The planning for that massive drill, Burnham said, had begun a year earlier -- even before the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S.

Times staff writer Hector Tobar in Mexico City contributed to this report.