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Sydney. Australia said it would send a team to the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, despite a warning from a private firm of an 80 percent chance of an extremist attack.

Consultants from Homeland Security Asia-Pacific said in a report they had identified a number of dangerous failings at the city’s major hotels, airport and on the public transportation network, leaving Australian athletes and officials vulnerable to attack.

“The biggest threat to our athletes we’ve identified are the road transfers from the airport to the village and from the village to the venues,” Roger Henning, one of the report’s authors, told News Limited newspapers.

“Delhi is a densely populated city and the opportunity for a terrorist strike in the city’s choking traffic and crowds is obvious,” he added.

Australian officials noted the report but said that the country’s team would be leaving for next month’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi as planned.

“We’re taking all the steps we need to take to protect our team,” said Perry Crosswhite, who serves as the chief of the Commonwealth Games Association. “It’s an acceptable level of risk and we’re going.”

Sports Minister Mark Arbib added: “I expect between now and the start of the Commonwealth Games we’re going to see a lot of private advice.

“What the government does is we make assessments based on the best information possible, and we make that advice available to Australian travelers.”

The latest Australian travel bulletin for the Games warns that there is a “high risk of terrorist attack in New Delhi.”

Henning warned that up to 30 known extremist groups were active in the Delhi area, and though security was tight in the actual Games precinct there were a number of targets nearby that were vulnerable to suicide bombings.

According to the report, the Games Family Hotel, home to officials and referees, does not have an appropriate perimeter to protect it from car bombs, and there is little surveillance of public transportation networks.

Screening machines at major hotels, the report added, are often switched off or faulty, and airport perimeter security is lax.


Agence France-Presse