The US sought the help of Thailand authorities via Interpol to try to trace a hacker who attempted to break into US military computers from a public Internet terminal at December's Asian Games, police said yesterday. Police Colonel Wichien Samarnphong, deputy commander of the crime suppression division, said the hacker tried unsuccessfully to get into several US military sites from the terminal at the Games site on the outskirts of Bangkok.

Police, US embassy officials and computer experts found the computer the hacker had used but were unable to track him down, he said.

The Nation newspaper said that one of the facilities the hacker tried to break into was a military air base in Texas which it did not identify by name.

The paper said staff at the base had detected a hacking attempt and managed to thwart it.

A spokesman for the US embassy said he was unable to comment on the reports and said inquiries would be dealt with by the US Defence Department.