Britain bans Kenya flights LONDON (Reuters) =97 Britain's ban on flights to and from Kenya due to an=20 "imminent" terror threat is the most urgent warning it has issued, travel=20 agents said on Friday. "I have never seen anything like this letter from=20 the Department of Transport before. I suppose it is really indicative of=20 the times we live in," a spokeswoman for the Association of British Travel= =20 Agents (ABTA) said. The warning, issued late on Thursday, banned all flights =97 passenger and= =20 cargo =97 for an indefinite period. "The threat level to UK civil aviation= =20 interests in Kenya has increased to IMMINENT," said a fax to all UK=20 airlines from the Department of Transport, stressing the key word.=20 "Accordingly...all UK airline operations to and from Kenya must BE=20 SUSPENDED," it added, again using capital letters. It did not specify the=20 threat but most media speculation revolved around surface to air missiles.= =20 "I think the ban is pretty open ended, but the travel industry will be=20 looking at it on a daily basis," the ABTA spokeswoman said. The decision =97= =20 taken after a suspected senior al Qaeda member was spotted in neighbouring= =20 Somalia =97 could cripple the region's tourist industry, already suffering= =20 from bombings in Nairobi, Mombasa and Tanzania in the past four years. The= =20 man spotted in Somalia =97 Fazul Abdullah Mohammed =97 is suspected of=20 masterminding those attacks. A Comoros islander, he is on the United=20 States' list of most wanted suspects. However, the ban only applies to UK operators flying to Kenya from Britain= =20 and does not affect other airlines. Kenya Airways spokesman David Granville= =20 said his airline was operating normally having checked with the British=20 government and raised its security. "We got clarification that the specific= =20 nature of the threat was not against Kenya Airways," he said. "We expect to= =20 continue operations." The ABTA spokeswoman also noted that the ban did not= =20 affect foreign airlines flying to Kenya from other centres such as=20 Amsterdam, Cairo or Johannesburg, giving people needing to either get to or= =20 from Kenya alternative routes. "We will be discussing today with the foreign office the safest way to take= =20 people home. It may well be to use the other airlines, but the foreign=20 office has said there is no immediate need to repatriate people," she said.= =20 Some 100,000 Britons travel to the former British colony of Kenya each=20 year, lured by the country's game parks and beaches. In a statement issued= =20 on Thursday evening, the Foreign Office advised against "non-essential,=20 including holiday travel to Kenya in light of the risk there of terrorist=20 activity. Kenya has complained that the ban is an over-reaction. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.cso.gov.tt TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************