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Officials downplay terrorist plot
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Australian authorities have played down an Olympic terrorist threat after reports emerged that New Zealand police had foiled a plot targeting a nuclear reactor in Sydney. Police raids in Auckland last March on suspected people-smuggling operations allegedly run by organized crime gangs uncovered evidence of the terrorist plot, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported Saturday. The newspaper report described the group as an Afghani terrorist cell with links to fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden. But Australian officials said there was no serious risk to the small research reactor, and they had no plans to shut it down. The Australian government had been monitoring the New Zealand police investigation since March, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported Saturday, citing an unnamed government source. Milton Cockburn, a spokesman for the Sydney 2000 organizing committee, said security during the Sept. 15-Oct. 1 Olympics was the responsibility of the New South Wales police. He declined to make any further comment. New South Wales police, which has overall control of games security, confirmed that it was monitoring the New Zealand investigations. "The New South Wales police service is aware of an investigation conducted by New Zealand police into the activities of an organized group in New Zealand," a police spokesman said Saturday. The threats was being treated seriously, as were all matters relating Olympic security, the spokesman added. Detective Superintendent Bill Bishop, of New Zealand police national headquarters, told Radio New Zealand that three men had been arrested during the raids in March and that investigations were continuing. He said the group, reported to be Afghanis living in Auckland under residency permits, were in possession of Sydney maps and plans of detailed access and exit routes to the targeted nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights. Police raided an Auckland home that had been converted into a virtual command center and located the maps plus notes on police security tactics, the Herald reported. The reports led to renewed calls from local residents and environmental group Greenpeace to shut the Lucas Heights reactor down, at least for the duration of the Olympics. A similar reactor in Atlanta was closed down during the 1996 Olympics. But federal Science Minister Nick Minchin said the reactor would not be closed during the games because there was no credible threat to the Lucas Heights facility or to the Olympics. "With regards to the Olympics, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) received an assessment from relevant Australian authorities last year that any threat of serious attack was very low and any threat to technology or material was also very low," he said. "ANSTO requested an update on this assessment last week and has been verbally advised that there is no change to this assessment." All nuclear materials and facilities were protected in accordance with national and international physical protection obligations, although security would be strengthened at Lucas Heights, Minchin said in a statement. "The ANSTO facility is a research reactor and, as such, its fundamental design greatly limits the risk to public safety from an accident." A spokeswoman for Australia's Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, said official inquiries had revealed that "there was no credible threat to Lucas Heights." The 1950s-vintage nuclear reactor in southern Sydney, in the suburb of Lucas Heights, is not a power plant. It is used for scientific and medical research and operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization. It is similar to thousands of such reactors at research facilities around the world which are commonly found in or near residential areas. The Lucas Heights reactor is tiny in comparison to an electricity-generating nuclear reactor. Lucas Heights has 25 fuel elements containing about 7 kilograms (15 1/2 pounds) of uranium. At normal operating capacity it produces about 10 megawatts of thermal energy, the ANSTO said. A typical electricity-generating reactor holds more than 150 tons of fuel and produces around 3000 megawatts of thermal energy. Georgia Tech shut down a test reactor on its campus before the Atlanta Olympics and moved all of its nuclear fuel because of concerns that terrorists could commandeer the fuel. The 30-year-old reactor was seen as a major security issue for Olympic organizers, because it was in the middle of the campus just north of downtown Atlanta and not far from the Olympic Aquatic Center and near the Olympic Village. The 5-million-watt reactor was the second most powerful university-based reactor in the United States. It was used for teaching, research and testing materials for strength and endurance.
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