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Flights: U.S. `over-reacted' on intelligence

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JAN 3. The U.S. security officials have been accused of "over-reacting" and acting on "half-baked" intelligence after it emerged that the cancellation of six Air France flights to the U.S. last week was caused by a misreading of passengers' names by the FBI agents.

French authorities were reported to be incandescent when it was discovered that one of the six "terror suspects' named by the U.S. security turned out to be a Tunisian child. Others included a harmless old Chinese woman, and an obscure insurance salesman from Wales. Three other `suspects' were French citizens with Arab-sounding names.

The French Interior Ministry said the confusion arose because Americans went simply by surnames of passengers with no other details. The names happened to be `homonyms,' resembling those of the wanted Al-Qaeda suspects. "The six passengers on the American list were questioned and checked out and in each case the result was negative," an official of the Interior Ministry said.

"The FBI works on names. Names have homonyms. It becomes even more complicated when there is no first name or date of birth and when names are transcribed into foreign languages."

The embarrassing disclosure came as more British Airways flights out of Heathrow airport were cancelled in the past 24 hours because of continuing security concerns, and travellers, particularly those flying to the U.S. have been warned of further delays and last-minute cancellations in view of new security precautions.

There were signs of growing irritation as the BA flight 223 to Washington was cancelled for the second day running on Friday. This particular flight has been dogged by security fears since New Year's Eve with the U.S. authorities claiming that they have information specifically relating to it, but little is known of the nature of the threat.

On Saturday, a jittery British Airways also grounded its flight to Riyadh following "security advice" from the Government. It was the second time in three days that the Riyadh flight was cancelled. Passengers, who would now have to wait until Monday when the next flight is due, were keeping their fingers crossed.

As the chaos continued, the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, spoke to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, to discuss ways of minimising disruption of flights to the U.S., but both Governments were reportedly of the view that it was better to err on the side of caution. Transatlantic travellers were warned to brace themselves for more delays and uncertainty following introduction of new rules by the U.S. authorities requiring all airlines to send them more details about each passenger after they have checked in.

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