Germany is hoping for the best but planning for the worst as it tackles the formidably complex job of protecting the World Cup against a terrorist attack.

"There is no such thing as 100 percent security, but everything that's humanly possible has been done," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said this week as he declared the country ready for the June 9 kick-off.

Members of Berlin's police special force make their way during a drill to enter the Olympic stadium in this November 8, 2005. Security preparations for the 32-nation tournament have focused on terrorism, hooliganism and petty crime, Berlin's police chief Dieter Glietsch told a news conference 11 days before the World Cup, during which Berlin will host six matches including the final. [filephoto]

There is no concrete indication that Islamist militants are planning attacks during the 31-day tournament, officials say, but the general "abstract risk" is high.

"Anyone staging the World Cup in 2006 has to take into account that there may be a terrorist threat," says August Hanning, a former spy chief now at the interior ministry who has liaised closely with foreign countries on security planning.

Or as the U.S. State Department puts it on its travel Web site: "Al Qaeda's demonstrated capability to carry out sophisticated attacks against sizable structures -- such as ships, large office buildings, embassies, and hotels -- makes it one of the greatest potential threats to the World Cup."

Germany knows from its own traumatic experience how a joyous festival of sport can turn into a bloodbath: Palestinian "Black September" guerrillas murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics which it had billed as the "Happy Games".

Last time the World Cup was held in Europe, in France in 1998, Belgian authorities foiled a suspected plot by Algerian militants to launch an attack during the tournament.

The 2002 competition in Japan and South Korea passed off calmly but amid massive and intrusive security, less than a year after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Four years later, Germany is seeking a difficult balance: to keep people safe without turning the event into a "big police exercise", as Schaeuble put it.

EYE IN THE SKY

A NATO fleet of AWACS surveillance aircraft, each able to detect low-flying targets from as far away as 400 km (215 nautical miles), will patrol the skies to detect hostile aircraft and direct fighter planes to intercept them.

Border checks, normally waived at Germany's frontiers for road and rail travellers, will be selectively introduced as a safeguard against both militants and hooligans.

A special World Cup security unit in the interior ministry, including experts from police bodies Interpol and Europol, has already been working around the clock for nearly two weeks to pool intelligence on every type of threat.

Statistics only begin to hint at the size of the challenge: 32 teams, 64 matches, 12 stadiums, some 3.2 million spectators and an estimated 1.5 million fans from abroad -- with or without tickets -- who are expected to travel to Germany for an event lasting over a month, nearly twice as long as the Olympic Games.

A quarter of a million officials, stadium employees, stewards, journalists and others have had to undergo security screening in order to receive their accreditation.

Teams like the United States and England, seen as high-risk because of their role in the war on terrorism, will get special protection at hotels, training grounds and as they criss-cross the country between games, requiring close coordination between the security services of Germany's 16 federal states.

But the German hosts are adamant that they will not allow security to smother the party mood or betray the tournament's constantly repeated motto, "A Time to Make Friends".

"We all want secure matches," Schaeuble told officials from 40 countries at the last big planning meeting in late March, "but we don't want to stage a world security championship."