Olympic Security Tighter in Face of Student Threats

With Seoul’s angry student militants threatening to take aim at Sunday’s marathon, the 100,000-member Olympic security force drew its tight security net even tighter around the Games today.

One U.S. security specialist said that the young radicals probably don’t mean what they say and that his biggest worry is the anti-Americanism surfacing among ordinary South Koreans.

After 12 days of Games, the security concerns at Seoul are often in the eye of the beholder. But by today everyone could see the new Olympics-wide clampdown.

For the first time, police bomb-sniffing dogs were deployed at the Olympic weightlifting hall. At the Olympic press center, the security men blocked driveways with more steel barriers, checked car trunks and undercarriages for bombs, and closely searched visitors and journalists.

“We increased the vigil,” one Olympic security official said.

The tightening coincided with Tuesday’s announcement that an anti-government student leader jailed since last week had been formally charged under the tough National Security Law, which covers sedition and similar acts.

But some questioned whether Seoul’s militant students were the main target of the stepped-up security.

Had authorities detected a sudden threat from international terrorists, such as the shadowy, ultra-leftist Japanese Red Army?

“Categorically, no,” said an American official who works closely with the South Korean security authorities.