French hunt airline Al-Qaida suspect

FRENCH police are hunting a suspected al-Qaida operative who had booked on an Air France flight to the US on Christmas Eve but failed to turn up.

In London, Transport Department officials refused to comment when asked if the cancellations of BA transatlantic flights were connected to the French hunt for an Afghan who is on the US terrorism watch list.

French Justice minister Dominique Perben said: “I confirm that we are looking for someone, but I can’t say more. What’s important when someone doesn’t take a plane is to know why he didn’t take it.”

Perben’s comments were in response to a US report that European authorities were searching for a man with alleged al-Qaida links who failed to board the Los Angeles flight.

ABC TV reported that American officials said the passenger had a French passport and was believed to have undergone training in Afghanistan.

The report also quoted French officials as saying that the man was feared to have a small bomb whose whose components might get past airport security. ABC said he was ticketed for Air France flight 68 from Paris to Los Angeles on December 24.

The flight was one of six Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that were cancelled following security talks between US and French officials.

Perben declined to respond to questions about whether the suspect was a French national, had a criminal record or was on a watch list of the French counter-terrorism agency, DST.

But French judicial officials said investigators were looking for an Afghan man named Abdou Hai, whose name appears on a US terrorism watch list.

His last name matches that of a passenger who was ticketed to board flight 68 but did not show up, the officials said.

Investigators have not yet established whether the Afghan man and the absent passenger are the same person.