Security Minister Alan West said Britain’s preparations for 2012 were in “good shape,” but came at a time of increased financial constraint because of the global banking crisis.“We are not complacent ... we do not underestimate the scale of the Olympic challenge,” he told an Olympics security seminar at the Royal United Services Institute in London. The Games are expected to attract world leaders as well as 500,000 spectators a day and thousands of athletes and officials at about 30 venues nationwide.
They will also act as a magnet for protest groups keen to publicize their message in front of a global television audience running into billions. Security has been an ever-present worry at Olympic Games since 11 Israeli team members died in Munich in 1972 after being held hostage by Palestinian gunmen.
Britain has been a target of militants in the recent past. In July 2005, four young British Islamists carried out suicide bomb attacks killing 52 commuters on the capital’s transport network, the day after the city was awarded the Games. “Since that tragic event, the UK has continued to face a high level of threat from terrorism -- we expect this threat to remain come the summer of 2012,” said West, a former head of the Royal Navy.
“The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games promise to be the greatest sporting event in UK history and quite possibly the greatest security challenge that the UK has faced since World War II.” Events in Mumbai last November and more recently in Lahore were a “sober illustration of the terrorists’ ability to use different methods and tactics.”
