Hundreds of Guards Protect French Squad After Warnings

An unprecedented 800 security guards have been detailed to protect France's football World Cup squad in Japan after police warnings that the reigning champions are a potential target for terrorists.

"We've known since the suicide bomb that killed 11 French engineers in Pakistan earlier this month that French interests are at serious risk wherever they are in the world," said Michel Gerber, deputy commander of the French police's rapid intervention unit, Raid.

"An attack on les Bleus would constitute a major symbolic blow against France, and the Japanese police are quite right to demand the very highest degree of vigilance. There have been no specific threats so far, but the danger is there and must be taken very seriously."

The team's luxury Iwasaki hotel complex in Ibusuki, empty of almost all guests except Zinédine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Marcel Desailly and the rest of the French squad, is under the permanent protection of 300 private guards. Metal detectors have been placed in every corridor and dozens more guards posted in front of key lifts and doorways.

Security men are also stationed every five metres between the hotel and the nearby heavily guarded training ground, but even then the players have been strictly forbidden from covering the 200 metres on foot and must use chauffeured golf buggies.

"Our police are very worried by the threat of a terrorist attack," said Naoya Sugiyama, the Japanese official in charge of security for the French team. "They have asked us to provide the highest possible level of security. It may be excessive, but that's what we've done."

French fears of terrorist violence by Islamic militants were heightened by the May 9 suicide bombing outside the Sheraton hotel in Karachi. The blast killed three Pakistanis and 11 French engineers working on a submarine project for the Pakistani navy, and was the latest in a series of attacks on westerners in Pakistan since September 11.

President Jacques Chirac condemned the attack, saying the engineers - whose colleagues have since been ordered home - were victims of a "murderous, cowardly, odious terrorist attack". French secret service agents sent to Pakistan to help with the investigation have said a connection with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network "appeared obvious".

Zidane, widely regarded as the best footballer in the world and therefore at particular risk, joined his teammates at the complex yesterday by helicopter, after a journey from France during which a Raid officer never left his side. Two specially trained French policemen are on detachment with the players until they return from the far east.

The French squad is occupying the seventh floor of the hotel and has been allocated a special dining room. Airspace over the hotel has also been declared off limits after a Japanese TV helicopter strayed into it and triggered a security alert.

Japanese and South Korean authorities have drawn up a list of 10,000 people - including 3,000 suspected of links with terrorist organisations - who will be automatically turned away by customs officers if they try to enter either country. In South Korea, the US is providing an Awacs surveillance plane and an aircraft carrier to bolster the security effort.

But despite intensive training with European Swat teams over the past few months, doubts remain about the two countries' capacity to deal with the terrorist threat. Neither has any experience of blind violence since the Aum sect's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo metro in 1995.

While some players have complained to French reporters about the constraints, the team manager, Roger Lemerre, said he would be happier if security could be increased even further.

"I feel safe because I'm not threatened," he said. "It's a good situation. But I could feel safer."