No easy way into China for foreign terrorists: Interpol

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's best defense against the risk of a terrorist attack on the Olympic Games is its strict visa system, now reinforced by worldwide police intelligence from the databases of Interpol.

China's requirement that all foreign visitors obtain visas means they are screened well before they show up at its borders, Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said.

"It's damn hard to get in here under a false identity," said Noble, who was in Beijing on Friday for the opening of the Games. "And it's damn hard to get out of here without being controlled."

Globally, only 24 countries systematically screen passports. So last year, for example, only 20 million of the 880 million people arriving at airports last year were screened, he told Reuters in an interview.

"In China every person is screened."

In the year of the Olympics, showcasing a resurgent China, Beijing has stepped up its collaboration with the 186-nation international criminal police organization, which is based in Lyon, France.

Noble said Interpol had established a direct video and telephone hotline to exchange highly sensitive information with top Chinese security officials and China had radically increased its use of Interpol databases.

"It's been tested and it's working. We hope we don't have to use it," he said, knocking twice on the wooden floor in the bar of Beijing's Marco Polo Hotel.

STEPPED-UP SEARCH

"We have no information suggesting there's any specific threat to the Games," he said. But it was prudent to assume that such a large event as the Olympics could attract terrorists.

"The Olympics are a target because the world is watching," Noble said. The motivations of would-be attackers may vary, but the common attraction lies in the knowledge that a billion eyes will be on Beijing for over two weeks.

Security has been an ever-present worry at Olympic Games since 11 Israelis died in Munich in 1972 after Palestinian gunmen took them hostage and German authorities botched a rescue attempt. A bomb at the Atlanta Games in 1996 killed one person and wounded more than 100.

In 2007, China searched Interpol's database of names 12,767 times and came up with 43 hits of suspects. This year it has searched 494,855 times and turned up 254 hits, he said.

In 2007, China searched Interpol's database of lost or stolen travel documents 18,377 times and got 24 hits. This year it has already conducted over half a million searches, scoring 254 hits in 73 different countries.

Pakistan, the United States, India, Spain and Italy yielded the largest numbers of hits, the Interpol chief said.

Some analysts believe homegrown extremists, not foreign militants, may pose the greatest potential threat to China's Olympics. But Interpol has little specific knowledge of them because Beijing does not give it out, Noble said.

Earlier this week in remote Western China, attackers identified by Chinese police as militants of the Uighur minority killed 16 police officers.

"Frankly, we received very little information about it," Noble said. "They treat this as an internal matter that's part of an ongoing investigation."

Chinese security is "very reluctant" to share any information on such cases.

Beijing is now crawling with uniformed police and special security officers. Noble said visitors should not be fooled by the static, almost decorative look of some young officers on podiums or under parasols at hundreds of manned checkpoints.

"China believes in plainclothes security. You don't know who is police and who isn't."

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)