Pipe Bombs Not An Olympic Threat

WASHINGTON: Justice Department officials arrested two Georgia men on charges of constructing pipe bombs but denied a CBS report that the suspects were plotting to set off explosives to disrupt the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games. "This is a couple of militia types who built things that can be made into pipe bombs, but we have no information of any plan to use them for the Olympics," said one law enforcement official. "The Olympics only came up once during the investigation when at one of their meetings one member said if a bomb goes off at the Olympics they would get blamed for it," said Justice Department spokesman Carl Stern. Federal officials say the two are leaders of the 15-member Georgia Republic Militia and have charged them with conspiracy and possession of unregistered explosives devices. The two had plans to assemble the explosives this weekend and conceal them in members homes until the day 'the war' begins, said Stern. ATF agents arrested the men after discovering bomb-making materials during a house raid in rural Crawford County, Georgia. "They appear to be what the ATF calls 'bubbas'," says TIME's Elaine Shannon. "One is a plumber and the other is an electrician. They call themselves a militia, but organized militias are not big in the South. There, the hate groups tend to be the Ku Klux Klan and skinheads."