Terrorism?

Two passengers aboard an Air France jetliner that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean last week may have had ties to an Islamic terrorist organization that has threatened France in the past, Sky News is reporting.

The disturbing discovery – which officials acknowledge could just be a “macabre coincidence” at this point – was made by French secret servicemen culling the list of the 228 passengers and crew who died aboard the ill-fated flight.

From Sky News:

Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure), the French equivalent of MI6, were dispatched to Brazil.

It was there that they established that two names on the passenger list are also on highly-classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic.

A source working for the French security services told Paris weekly L’Express that the link was “highly significant”.

Agents are now trying to establish dates of birth for the two dead passengers, and family connections.

France has been the target of fresh terror threats since it dispatched troops to Afghanistan earlier this year.

The plane – an Airbus 330-203 – is widely-presumed to have gone down due to a “catastrophic systems failure” resulting from severe storms. Another theory is that frozen speed sensors caused the pilots to lose control of the jet, although that theory has been disputed by French pilots.

French submarines are currently probing the floor of the Atlantic for the plane’s “black box,” which would include flight data as well as a cockpit voice recorder.

The crash is the deadliest – and costliest – aerial disaster since 2001.

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