Heavy security for Olympic torch in Pakistan
16 April, 2008
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan deployed thousands of police and troops to protect the Olympic torch on Wednesday as it starts the latest leg of its protest-hit journey around the world before the Beijing Games in August.
The heavy security in the capital Islamabad comes as Pakistan tries to protect China, its closest ally, from further embarrassment at the hands of pro-Tibet and human rights demonstrators.
Pakistani authorities also cut back the torch's route at the last minute, citing security fears sparked by an unprecedented wave of Al-Qaeda and Taliban suicide bombings that has killed 1,000 people in the past year.
President Pervez Musharraf, who returned from a week-long visit to China early Wednesday, and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will lead the ceremony at the city's main stadium watched by 8,000 hand-picked guests.
Former squash star Jahangir Khan is set to light the cauldron at the end of the relay, Pakistani sources said.
The original plan was to parade the torch from the white marble presidency building and along Islamabad's leafy main boulevard, but the entirety of the event will now be held behind closed doors at the arena.
Army contingents, paramilitary troops and elite police commandos will guard the flame as it arrives at Jinnah Stadium (at 1055 GMT), Pakistan Sports Board official Lieutenant Colonel Baseer Haider Malik told AFP.
Officials said there was no indication of a specific threat but security was tight because of the presence of Muslim separatists from China's northwestern Xinjiang region in Pakistan's troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
"A little over 3,000 policemen including reinforcments from Punjab province have been deployed, in addition to paramilitary and regular troops to secure the event," Islamabad police chief Shahid Nadeem Baluch told AFP.
"We are doing whatever possible to ensure everything goes trouble-free."
Pakistan Olympic Association chairman Arif Hassan said Tuesday that the "entire event was re-scheduled due to security threats. We had to re-schedule the programme to ensure full security to the torch relay and its participants."
He said Pakistani authorities had chosen the shortest of three possible routes.
Musharraf on Monday condemned the earlier pro-Tibetan protests on the tour.
"There is no one in Pakistan, not one man, who would like to do anything against the interests of China," Musharraf told students following a speech at a Beijing university during his China visit.
Pakistan and China are close political, military and commercial allies. But two militant attacks here last year targeted Chinese workers.
China's hopes of winning international prestige by sending the Olympic torch through 135 cities on five continents ahead of the August 8 opening of the Olympic Games have already been severely dented.
The early stages in London and Paris were overshadowed by demonstrations against Beijing's crackdown on protests in Tibet, and the third stage in San Francisco was also drastically curtailed and seen by relatively few people.
Officials said Wednesday that Australian police had been give extra powers to ensure there is no violence when the torch goes there, while the southern Chinese territory of Hong Kong announced it was changing its torch route.
Before Muscat, the legs in Buenos Aires and Dar es Salaam passed off with little incident.
The torch's next stop will be the Indian capital New Delhi on Thursday.
Indian police detained dozens of pro-Tibet demonstrators shouting "We Want Justice, Stop Killing in Tibet" on Tuesday in New Delhi as they carried an "independence torch" along the route planned for the relay.
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