FBI says flights to Boston not specifically part of plot

The FBI's top agent in New England said yesterday that there was no indication that flights to Boston were targeted by a group of suspected terrorists arrested in Britain, Italy, and Pakistan in connection with an alleged plot to blow up passenger planes bound for the United States.

``The information I have is that they were targeting planes with US destinations and it was unclear which destinations they were targeting," said Kenneth Kaiser , the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office.

The alleged plot was aimed at specific carriers, according to Kaiser, including United Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, and British Airways.

``They didn't have a specific city in mind," Kaiser said. ``They were in the preplanning stages. They were going to try to do dry runs and things like that. They had not got there yet."

Kaiser said earlier news reports indicating that Boston and other cities were specifically targeted by the group were erroneous.

Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday that he'd been told by the Department of Homeland Security that flights to Boston weren't targeted as part of the terrorist plot.

``The source for Homeland Security was British security," Romney said.

He added that even though he's been told that Boston wasn't specifically targeted, he has already ordered heightened security measures at Logan International Airport, and those procedures would remain in place.

During a visit to Washington's Reagan National Airport yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declined to answer reporters' detailed questions about where and when the alleged terrorists were planning to strike.

``All I'm going to say publicly about this is that they were searching scheduling routes and flight schedules and appear to have homed in on at least some of those," Chertoff said.

A Homeland Security spokesman also declined to comment. ``You never want to forecast to the bad guys everything that you know," said spokesman Russ Knocke, adding that ``the American public appreciates what we have been able to say about this."

Frank Phillips of the Globe staff contributed to this report.