NZ police uncover plot to disrupt Sydney Games

NZ police uncover plot to disrupt Sydney Games
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

AUCKLAND, AUG 26: New Zealand police have uncovered an apparent terrorist plot to target a nuclear reactor in Sydney at next month's Olympic Games, the New Zealand Herald reported here Saturday. Partly as a result of a police investigation in Auckland, Australian authorities might order the 40-year-old Lucas Heights reactor, on the southern outskirts of Sydney, to shut down, the paper said.

TheWeekend Herald said in its exclusive front-page story that the plot appeared to have been hatched by Afghani sympathisers of Osama bin Laden, the Western world's most wanted terrorist. The paper said its sources revealed members of what appeared to be a clandestine cell of Afghan refugees in Auckland granted New Zealand residency "continue to maintain direct telephone links with suspected terrorist organisations in their strife-torn homeland."

Detectives in Auckland stumbled on the apparent reactor conspiracy during an investigation into people-smuggling by organised crime syndicates. They conducted a series of house raids in March and found evidence suggesting a conspiracy to attack the reactor. The lounge of a Mount Albert home was converted into a virtual command centre, complete with conference table and maps, the paper said. A Sydney street map was found.

The site of the reactor, built in 1958 for research purposes, and access routes to it were highlighted. Entries in a notebook outlined police security tactics, standards and chains of command for the Commonwealth Games held in Auckland in 1990. Agreeing the evidence had sinister overtones, a senior detective told theWeekend Herald: "It is circumstantial and suspicious. "If it was not for the Sydney Games, they (the Australian authorities) would not be so touchy. There is quite a bit of interest there."