Athens, Greece – Bombs in the streets of Athens brought new security worries a few weeks from the opening of the Olympics on August 13. The security budget is estimated at $1.2 billion, almost five times the amount spent on protecting the Sydney games in 2000. However, the Olympic consulting team, a group of security experts from seven countries advising the Greek government and Athoc, the games organizing body, are still concerned about gaps in security preparations.

    Tom Ridge, the U.S. secretary for homeland security, is understood to have raised concerns about possible terrorist attacks in talks with Greece's public order minister, who was visiting Washington D.C. (USA). NATO officials have pointed out a lack of security around the harbor facilities at Piraeus, Greece's main commercial port and jumping-off point for thousands of tourists taking ferries to and from the Aegean islands. "Every one of these ferries is a potentially unchecked bomb. Hundreds of cars and trucks are being loaded without inspection by security operatives," one NATO official reported last month. The lack of checks on passengers arriving from the islands has raised fears that attackers could follow the route taken by many illegal immigrants to Greece - a crossing by small boat from Turkey to a nearby Greek island, then a ferry to Piraeus.

    The ministry has set a high priority on protecting the Olympic zone. The security measures are unprecedented for an international port in peacetime, analysts say. There will be a high security fence equipped with sensors, several hundred surveillance cameras, walk-through metal detectors and X-ray machines to be used by passengers, ships' crews and visitors. The quayside will be patrolled by coastguards and police and will have their own command center equipped with state-of-the-art communications. There are also underwater security measures like submarine control systems and sea-bed detectors.

    The consulting team, however, is concerned about whether Greek security forces can protect other areas of the port, such as the crowded quayside used by hydrofoils and small ferries catering to commuter and weekend traffic to nearby islands. Exercises earlier this year highlighted problems of co-ordination between the police, who are in overall charge of security, the armed forces and other services such as harbor authorities and coastguard.