Argentina greets torch with extra cops

Enlarge By Natacha Pisarenko, AP Big celebrations are planned in Buenos Aires, Friday for the Olympic flame, which arrived Thursday. Pro-Tibet protestors are gearing up, but Argentina has assigned extra police.

But officials are worried enough about anti-China protests to mobilize thousands of police officers after torch runs in other cities caused chaos, and protesters warned of a Buenos Aires "surprise."

The Olympic flame arrived Thursday under heavy security from San Francisco, where police cut the torch's route in half and sent the flame far away from demonstrators, disappointing many who had gathered to see it.

Argentine authorities are deploying 1,300 federal police, 1,500 naval police and some 3,000 traffic police and volunteers — enough to ensure security "without going to the extreme that nobody will be able to see the torch," said government sports official Francisco Irarrazabal.

Irarrazabal said at the airport that the jetliner carrying the torch and a Chinese delegation had arrived Thursday afternoon as expected, and that the flame, kept in a "safety lantern," was being whisked to an undisclosed overnight location for safekeeping.

Security concerns were so tight that news agency photographers called to cover the torch's arrival on the runway at Ezeiza International Airport were told just before the arrival that their photo opportunity had been canceled. No explanation was given, and the torch remained out of public view.