US confirms it warned France of rail blast threat

WASHINGTON, April 8 (AFP) – The US government passed uncorroborated information to France concerning the threat of an attack, which led to the halt of Paris sururban rail traffic and the evacuation of five stations Thursday evening, a US government official said.

“The US government did pass some uncorroborated information to the French,” the official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

He said the information was transmitted “due to time sensitivity,” despite the fact that “it wasn’t necessarily verifiable at the time.”

He did not specify the source of the information or the precise time it was given.

The French police said they evacuated the stations after the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) informed the French of an anonymous message it had received warning of a possible attack between 1830 and 1930 GMT.

They later announced they had ended the state of alert after an interruption of about one hour and a half.