Israel on alert for potential Olympic attacks

JERUSALEM -- Israel's prime minister said Sunday that his country is on alert for plots to kill more of its citizens overseas, after speculation that last week's suicide bombing of a tour bus in Bulgaria was a rehearsal for a spectacular attack on Israel's Olympics team.

Israel blames Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah for last week's bombing at an airport in the Bulgarian resort town of Burgas, just a little more than a week before the opening of the London Games. Five Israelis and a bus driver were killed. Iran called the accusation "baseless."

While Israeli officials are tight-lipped about security procedures for their athletes, they are on high alert on the 40th anniversary of a Palestinian attack at the 1972 Olympics that killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

"We are vigilant about the possibility that they [Iran and its agents] would attack elsewhere, but I can't give specific details," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS television's "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

The Israeli team will be kept away from the others in a secluded, heavily secured area, a senior Israeli intelligence official told The Associated Press.

A British security official said the threat level to Israeli athletes and officials had been high even before the Bulgaria attack. He said security arrangements were assessed again following the attack, but he would not say whether they had been changed.