Apecalypse Now - Surviving in the Summit City

It's a low-key little operation - just 2400 police, the Army, Air Force and lots of armed bodyguards. By Warren Gamble

For around 15 minutes next Monday they'll be exposed - President Clinton, the leaders of China, Russia, Japan and every other Apec nation all standing in the open.

For the only time during the summit, the leaders will break from the cover of hotel suites and meeting rooms to line up in the Auckland Domain for the traditional leaders' photograph.

Focussed on them will be the camera barrels of the world's media.

Almost everyone else in the Domain will have their eyes and ears focussed on just one task - keeping the IPPs (Internationally Protected Persons) safe.

Police heading New Zealand's biggest security operation will not discuss their assessments of the potential threats for Apec.

But no matter how unlikely a terrorist attack may be, they have planned for it.

The cutting edge of Operation Apec will be the police special tactics group (STG) - an elite band of marksmen trained in counter-terrorist techniques.

At the Domain, black-clad members of the STG's counter-sniper team will watch over the leaders from the roof of the Auckland Museum.

They will be seen on the roofline as a visible deterrent to snipers, using high-powered binoculars to constantly check for potential threats. Their rifles will not be visible unless they need to be used.

Watching over the watchers will be members of the US Secret Service, including their own counter-sniper officers. They will not have rifles but, in line with their "trust no-one" approach, will monitor the STG's every move.

On the ground the security curtain will involve a battalion of soldiers guarding the perimeter, including the bushy slopes leading to Stanley St, where temporary barriers will be erected through the bush.

Police will be everywhere else, patrolling every grassy knoll, the Museum forecourt and the Wintergarden tearooms where the leaders will take lunch.

They are also likely to have a presence at Auckland Hospital, the tallest building overlooking the Domain. Further overhead, the police Eagle helicopter will hover, using its new super-zoom camera to keep an eye on the action below.

The Secret Service and the other 20 leaders' bodyguards will complete the security blanket, and for a few hours the Domain will look like a staging post for an invasion.

It is not an image the Apec police commander, Detective Superintendent Peter Marshall, would care for.

Although it is the country's largest and most high-profile security operation, he has gone for the reassuring line that police are seeking a balance between protecting leaders while causing minimum disruption.

"The best result will be for Aucklanders not to be unnecessarily inconvenienced, for there to be no real security issue and for the mechanics of Apec, as best we can influence them, to go through smoothly," he said.

But inevitably the police imperative - with their international reputation on the line - is the safety of the leaders, their spouses, and foreign and trade ministers.

About a third of the country's sworn police officers, 2400 of them, will be on duty for Apec. Around 1600 of those will come from out of Auckland.

Each visiting delegation has been assigned a personal protection team, headed by a senior officer who selected their team from within their district.

Those protection teams will also be part of security in the motorcades whizzing leaders to and from the airport and around their city hotels - along routes where the letterboxes and manhole covers will be sealed, and the rubbish tins removed, to deprive potential attackers of places to hide bombs.

Like the Domain, the leaders' hotels and the Auckland Town Hall will have their contingents of STG counter-snipers looking out for potential threats. Each motorcade will also have a dedicated STG counter-assault team to handle an ambush.

Other police will be rostered around the clock for duty inside and outside hotels, some of which will have airport-style magnetometers to screen visitors for weapons.

From today a police cordon will also stop the public getting into Aotea Square.

A "response" group will be on call for demonstrations. They will not carry pepper spray, but supplies will be on hand.

Various protest groups have been liaising with police to help choose a "meaningful" site for their protest, said Mr Marshall, but others did not want police involved in that decision.

As evidence that the police operation is relatively low key, Mr Marshall points out that New Zealand's contingent of 2400 police compares with 5000 in Vancouver and 10,0000 in Kuala Lumpur for the two previous Apec summits.

"Some Apecs have closed city centres, put an iron ring around them. We are not doing that but, having said that, we can't overstate that we need people to keep their cars out of the city during the relevant hours."