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Japanese airport closes runway after bomb threat
An airport in northern Japan closed a runway and evacuated a plane Monday after an unidentified caller claimed to have planted a bomb there, authorities said. No bomb had yet been found and the runway was later reopened. The male caller said he put a bomb in the luggage on a Japan Airlines flight from Sendai, 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of Tokyo, to Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido, prompting officials to abort takeoff and evacuate the plane. The plane, carrying 49 passengers and five crewmembers, was taxiing on the runway at the time of the call, said a Transport Ministry official at the airport. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. Authorities were searching the plane for a bomb, but nothing had been found yet. Officials were checking through luggage and running it through x-ray machines in a search for explosives. "So far no abnormalities have been found," the ministry official said. The bomb scare came as Japan is bolstering security ahead of the September 11 parliamentary elections, mobilizing 13,600 police officers nationwide, especially at airports, major train stations and bus terminals. Last Friday, The Financial Times reported that France's top anti-terror judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, said there were indications that al-Qaida may be targeting an Asian financial center and that several Asian countries were less prepared than the United States or Europe. In response, Japanese officials insisted that the country _ home to the world's second-largest economy _ was not unprepared for such an attack. Tomohiko Taniguchi, deputy press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Japan has increased its vigilance by adopting new passports that use computer chips to store much more information about the holder, and other steps. The passport measure was taken after reports surfaced last year that Lionel Dumont, a French citizen with suspected links to al-Qaida and a history of violent crime, had repeatedly entered Japan on a fake passport. Dumont, who is imprisoned in France, was reportedly trying to set up a terror cell when he lived in northern Japan undisturbed in 2002 and 2003.
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