Security Talks Focus on Terror

Global defence chiefs gathered in Munich to talk about the threat of international terrorism and NATO's relevance to the new security challenges.

The conference's organiser, Horst Teltschik, said NATO was becoming a "two-class society with the U.S. as the lead power".

"Does that mean that in future we will divide work up so the Americans fight, while the Europeans pay?" he asked.

The fact that Washington went to war almost alone in Afghanistan has rekindled a debate about the relevance of NATO in the post-Cold War world and the military capability gap between the United States and its European allies.

Meanwhile the United States continued its campaign against supporters of terrorism, saying that suspect states had been warned, were being watched and would be held to account.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the conference that the suicide hijack attacks of September 11 were a pale shadow of what would happen if terrorists used weapons of mass destruction.

"Our approach has to aim at prevention and not merely punishment. We are at war," he said.

Tight security

The conference in the Bavarian capital was held under much stricter security than in previous years. Police blocked off streets several blocks away from the hotel hosting the meeting.

Protesters came from Italy, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Many shops were boarded up and police checked cars entering the city. The police say they have evidence that up to 3,000 of the 5,000 protesters are bent on violence.

Three thousand officers, as well as armoured personnel carriers and special commandos are on the streets to try and prevent the protests from escalating into violence.

But spaces have been cleared to allow for the detention of 300 people. In the clashes between police and protesters at last summer's summits, dozens of people were injured and one protester was killed in Genoa by a young police officer.