Five people linked to Middle East terrorist groups in Europe and Asia have been deported from Australia in a national security sweep ahead of the Sydney Olympics in September.
Newspaper reports yesterday said five illegal immigrants with links to the Saudi terrorist, Mr Osama Bin Laden, Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers and an unnamed central European group had been deported in the past year.
Government officials yesterday refused either to confirm or deny the report, but authoritative sources confirmed a security sweep was in progress ahead of the September 15th to October 1st games.
Australian security officials sought to reassure visiting foreign dignitaries and athletes that the Sydney Olympics would be safe.
"In international terms, Australia faces a low overall level of security threat," said the Attorney General, Mr Daryl Williams, in opening an international conference on athlete and dignitary protection.
The 50 Australian and international delegates to the security conference are being given a tour of Olympic sites along with their overall briefing.
"We have been relatively free of acts of espionage, foreign interference, terrorism and other political violence. . . However, just because we are a lucky country does not mean we are complacent about matters of national security," Mr Williams said.
"Of course there can be no absolute guarantees when talking about security," he added.
The Sydney Olympics security chief warned that such a huge international event as the Olympics was always vulnerable.
"We've done the best we can and it's the best that anyone in the world can provide," said the New South Wales state Police Commissioner, Mr Peter Ryan, a former London police chief.
"We have planned for just about every contingency we can possibly think of, but there's no guarantee when it comes to international terrorism or. . . maybe a domestic individual wanting to making a point," Mr Ryan told a news conference.
Fears of a possible terrorist threat to the Sydney games were raised in May when police arrested a man whose home near Sydney's Olympic Village was packed with explosives, some similar to those used in the antigovernment Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
Mr Ryan said the absence of many heads of state, such as President Clinton, had made games security a little easier.
"It's good news for us. We won't have to heighten security around such people because they do demand an enormously high level of security," he said.
Mr Williams warned foreign security forces not to bring arms into Australia as part of their games security. "Foreign security officials have no operational role in Australia."