By IRNA-Itar-Tass
Lisbon : Portugal has confirmed the instance of intercepting an exchange of radio messages between militants of some unknown terrorist group concerning the possibility of a terrorist attack against targets in Paris.
General Leonel Carvalho, of the security services’ coordinating office , said on Friday the radio message was intercepted on short waves by air traffic controllers on the Santa Maria island, the Azores Archipelago.
The intercepted radio message was at once transferred to Portugal’s information and security service, which shared it with French secret services.
General Carvalho said the message mentioned the possibility of a terrorist attack against the Eiffel Tower. At the same time he did not confirm those who exchanged the radio messages discussed the possibility of using aircraft for terrorist attacks.
Secret services do not rule out that the radio messages’ real purpose was to trigger panic. This is not the first threat of terrorist attacks against France and its citizens that have come to light over the past few weeks.
Apart from the verbal threats on Islamic web sites there was an attack against French tourists in Mauritania late last December. Four of them died. That terrorist attack caused the first-ever cancellation of the world’s biggest motor race Paris-Dakar that had been expected to start in the Portuguese capital on January 5.