Multiple air attack on LA thwarted: US

That belief, according to one senior US counter-terrorism official, was based on reliable and corroborated information from several sources. Some of the men had the same names as identified members of Al Qaeda and Taliban, said a senior US official. One of the men is a trained pilot with a commercial license.

US officials said they were particularly concerned that other flights heading toward Los Angeles at the same time, including one from Mexico, might also be targets of planned Al Qaeda hijackings. But they stressed that the information was not as specific and credible as the intelligence indicating that Flight 68 was targeted for a takeover. The US officials would not discuss where their information came from, except to say that it came from multiple sources, and that it was independently verified and corroborated. 8216;8216;There was little doubt in anybody8217;s mind that LA was the target of this one,8217;8217; said one senior US counter-terrorism official involved in the investigation.

US law enforcement officials said the flights were cancelled in response to the same intelligence that prompted the federal Department of Homeland Security last week to ratchet up the nation8217;s terror alert level to orange, the second highest level.

Other US law enforcement officials said authorities at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris detained some of the 200 passengers and crew from Flight 68 for questioning. There were conflicting reports about whether any of them were taken into custody. It was unclear late Wednesday whether the men being sought had boarded the flight, or were 8216;8216;scared off8217;8217; by reports that Los Angeles had been identified as a possible target.

American officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators became interested in the flight after intercepted 8216;8216;chatter8217;8217; among suspected terrorists led US intelligence to believe an attack might be imminent.

The chatter included a specific reference to Flight 68, according to one federal law enforcement source. The flight arrives daily at Los Angeles International Airport at 4:05 p.m.

When FBI counter-terrorism agents began reviewing Wednesday8217;s manifest for Flight 68, they discovered that the passenger list included at least one name similar to that of a person linked to the Taliban and others with names linked to Al Qaeda. With that information, US authorities contacted French intelligence about the possibility that suspected terrorists might be on the flight. They prevailed upon Air France to cancel Flight 68, as well as others bound for Los Angeles, since the original intelligence information warned of more than one flight being commandeered.

The cancellations were announced by the office of French PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which said the action was 8216;8216;based on information in the process of verification obtained as a result of Franco-American cooperation against terrorism.8217;8217;

Altogether, six flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Wednesday and Thursday were affected. French investigators would not say whether arrests had been made. They would only say that US and French investigators were working together. LAT-WP