US federal agents arrested two men with militia links on explosives charges in the state of Georgia yesterday amid fears of terrorist incidents near the 1996 Olympic Games in the capital, Atlanta.
However, the US Justice Department denied reports on CBS News that the two suspects had planned to detonate bombs to disrupt the Olympics.
A Justice Department spokesman, Mr Carl Stern, said the two men had planned to assemble the bombs this weekend. Asked what they were aiming to do, he said: "They are waiting for the day the war starts."
One of the two men arrested is Mr Robert Starr, head of an organisation called the Militia at Large for the Republic of Georgia.
Mr Starr appeared on CNN television's Talk Back Live last year. He told the programme that President Clinton should address the concerns of the militias which have flourished in recent years.
The second man arrested was named as Mr William McCraney, a plumber at Americus High School.
The arrests followed raids on homes in the towns of Americus and Knoxville. They raise concerns that new terrorist incidents are planned by sympathisers of Mr Timothy McVeigh, the chief suspect in the Oklahoma city bombing last year. Mr McVeigh is in a federal prison in Colorado awaiting trial in September for causing the Oklahoma bombing, the worst terrorist incident ever in the United States.
The Oklahoma bombing was carried out on the second anniversary of the attack by federal agents on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas. The anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing passed last week without incident.
However, militia groups say they are preparing to defend themselves against a coming attempt by the federal government to deny the right of Americans to bear arms.
At a White House news conference called to welcome the Middle East ceasefire, Mr Clinton replied "No" when asked if he was concerned about his own security in going to Atlanta during the summer Olympics.
CBS News said yesterday the federal agents began raiding homes in central Georgia early in the morning.
They were reported to have discovered a bomb-making factory with enough chemicals to make several pipe bombs.
The worst terrorist incident at the Olympics happened in 1972, when 11 Israeli athletes were killed in Munich after being taken hostage by Arab guerrillas.