US sends BA flight back to Britain

US authorities told a British Airways flight bound for New York to turn back because they did not want a passenger on board to land on American soil, a BA spokeswoman said yesterday.

US sources said a name on the passenger list matched a that of a suspected member of a Moroccan militant group. British police have given no details about the man.

"We are speaking to a passenger from a flight that landed at Heathrow at about quarter to six" a spokeswoman for Scotland Yard said.

"He hasn't actually been arrested," she added, declining to say how long he might be questioned for.

British Airways said flight 175, a Boeing 747, left London's Heathrow airport for New York's JFK just after 1100 GMT and received a call from US authorities to turn back at about 1400 GMT.

The BA spokeswoman said the detained man's luggage had been removed from the flight which was expected to take off again for New York later yesterday evening.

"The plane was diverted back to London following a request from the US authorities about a passenger they did not want to disembark," the BA spokeswoman said.

The US official said the United States requested the flight be diverted to Bangor, Maine, but British Airways asked for permission to return to London.

Last year a number of British Airways and Air France flights were cancelled because US officials cited intelligence pointing to an al Qaeda plot to target planes.

At the times of the cancellations in December 2003 and last January the US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said intelligence showed al Qaeda was still interested in using aircraft, particularly commercial airliners, to carry out an attack against the United States.

Al Qaeda is held responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States involving four hijacked commercial airplanes. About 3,000 people were killed in those attacks.

Yesterday, Mr Ridge, who is leaving government, reaffirmed the official view that the US remains al Qaeda's top target, despite a recent decline in intelligence pointing specifically to plans for a US attack.

"We can't be any less vigilant because the level of intelligence that speaks specifically about us over the past couple of months has been reduced," Mr Ridge said at a briefing hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

"I don't think we can lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day the United States and our economy and our way of life is still their (al Qaeda's) primary target," he said.