CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A Paris-bound flight was rescheduled for Sunday after Venezuela grounded an Air France plane that French intelligence authorities said terrorists might have been planning to blow up.
Venezuela and French officials on Sunday did not provide information about the search of the aircraft, or offer details about the earlier tip that a terrorist group was possibly planning to plant an explosive device on the plane and detonate it in midair.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres had told state TV late Saturday that more than 60 technicians, bomb experts and a canine team would perform an exhaustive search of the aircraft before the flight could be reprogrammed. Hours after the flight’s scheduled departure at 7:25 p.m. Saturday it was unclear when the results of the search would be announced.
The precise nature of the bomb threat was not known, but Rodriguez Torres said that French authorities passed along information from a credible source that a terrorist group was seeking to place a bomb aboard an unspecified flight from Caracas to Paris, or vice versa.
“We don’t want to speculate on the motives because the information comes directly from French intelligence services,” Rodriguez Torres said.
In Paris, the French Interior Ministry said Sunday that France immediately alerted authorities upon learning of a potential threat to the route, which is served only by Air France.
“It is obviously the principle of precaution,” said Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet. “We cannot allow the least risk, run the least risk for passengers.” He provided no details on the measures taken and refused to comment on the nature of the threat or its origin.
An Air France press officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because of company policy said the carrier was working “in close collaboration” with airport and government authorities.
Stranded passengers said they had cleared immigration Saturday evening and were preparing to board Air France flight 385 when they were told at the last minute that it was being delayed so that the Airbus A340-300 aircraft could be checked. No reason was given.
“We only learned reading Twitter that it could’ve been a bomb,” said Jesus Arandia, a 52-year-old university professor.
About 100 angry passengers surrounded the Air France check-in counter to protest the airline’s failure to keep them informed or immediately provide alternative travel arrangements. Around midnight, the airport announced the flight was rescheduled for Sunday afternoon.
“They never told us anything,” said Marbella Covino, a 22-year-old student.
The Air France office in Paris said Sunday that passengers from the postponed flight were being put on a flight that will leave Caracas at 8 p.m. local time.
Venezuela’s intelligence agency declined to comment on the threat, saying it isn’t authorized to discuss the case.
Security breaches have been detected before at Venezuela’s main international airport.
In September, several Venezuelan soldiers stationed at the airport were arrested after French authorities made their biggest cocaine bust ever, seizing 1.4 tons of narcotics that were smuggled in 31 suitcases aboard another Air France flight to Paris.
Brandet, of the French Interior Ministry, said the drug bust was among several leads being investigated.
France is involved with two ongoing military interventions in former African colonies, in Mali where it routed Islamic extremists from the north and in Central African Republic where French troops moved in earlier this month to help stabilize the country, disarming militia to stop sectarian violence.
The U.S. has warned that Middle Eastern terror groups have tried to make inroads in Venezuela, taking advantage of political cover provided by the late President Hugo Chavez’s outreach to Iran and Syria, whose governments the U.S. considers state sponsors of terrorism.
Still, even while criticizing the lack of anti-terror cooperation from Venezuela, the State Department in its most-recent assessment of terrorist threats in the Western Hemisphere said that there are no known operational cells currently in the region. Instead, the activity of groups including Hezbollah and al-Qaida appears to be limited to fundraising and money-laundering, the report said.
Source: Associated Press
