While the Australians were willing to accommodate demands such as one that Israeli athletes be housed on the second floor of the Olympic Village with athletes from neutral and friendly countries below and surrounding them, they had reservations on other demands.

One of these was Israeli secret service officers be given roof access to guard their athletes and, ``most controversial of all, that the agents bring in and use their own firearms,'' the paper said.

It was believed that the Americans refused a similar request for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles only to discover later that the Israelis had sent in weapons in diplomatic mailbags, the paper said.

The Israelis are known to have organised most of their own Olympic security, with or without the consent of the host nations, since the 1972 Munich Olympics where Palestinian militants fromthe `Black September' group killed 11 Israeli athletes and officials.