Once Again, Overseas Flights Appear To Be Targets

The bad news is that, once again, there is "specific and credible" information that terrorists -- possibly linked to al Qaeda -- want to hijack foreign flag passenger aircraft and crash them into targets inside the United States. The good news, if it can be called that, is that the threats don't appear as serious as they were over the holidays.

Over a three week period starting around Christmas, 15 flights headed for the US from other countries were canceled. Dozens of other flights were delayed as authorities searched passengers, passenger lists and luggage for possible hazards.

Most of the flights affected were headed to LAX or Washington Dulles. Most were either British Airways or Air France flights.
 
Homeland Security and TSA officials late Friday said the same airlines and perhaps the same airports appear to be targeted in this latest round of terror threats. The officials didn't give any further details.

Those threats were enough for the Homeland Security Department to raise the terror threat assessment level to Orange (high) on December 21st. The alert level was lowered again on January 9th. But at the time, NBC quoted one senior official as saying, "We are still not out of the weeds -- we continue to be concerned."

What they are saying right now is that the terror threat assessment level won't be raised for the time being. It will remain -- at least for now -- at "elevated" or yellow alert.

FMI: www.tsa.gov