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Athens 2004 Security Gets Help From Israel

Israel has joined six other countries in helping Greece with its security plan for the Athens 2004 Summer Olympic Games. The others are the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Spain.

Israeli police spokesman said a high level Israeli team, led by Israeli police chief Shlomo Aharonishky, visited Greece to help train the Greek forces. Kleiman said security evaluations have identified Greece’s long coastline as a weak point, and Israel was also providing training for the Greek coast guard.

Greece’s Public Order Minister Giorgos Floridis told the Israeli-based Haaretz daily that Israel is a key country with respect to providing intelligence information and training and drilling the Greek security forces”.

Floridis said Greece had turned to Israel for help in developing feasibility studies on security, developing plans for suicide bombers and getting information on terror groups and potential threats.

According to Haaretz, later this month a team from Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency could lead a training seminar for senior Greek officers in Greece and officers from the Greek anti-terror unit had undergone training in Israel.

In a related note the Greek coast guard will work in close cooperation with the navy and air force to spot suspicious movements and to react immediately, in accordance with the plan called Poseidonio. Patrols in sensitive areas will intensify and there will be more spot checks of vessels entering Greek waters.

Harbours and areas hosting marine events will be monitored by special electronic equipment, including cameras and submarine sensors. Also, boat patrols and frogmen will guard 12 cruise ships housing 12,000 people.

And a zeppelin fitted with high-resolution cameras will watch over the Games.

The zeppelin will be in service for around three months. The cameras from the air ship will feed footage into the Greek police’s security operations headquarters.

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