Pakistan and India have both decided to change their plans for the Olympic torch and to increase security after the recent protests.

Officials in Pakistan, a close ally of China, said that they did not expect anti-China protests but that they had changed the venue for the torch run for security reasons.

“As such there’s no threat but, obviously, because of the overall security environment, we didn’t want to take a chance,” said Lieutenant Colonel Baseer Haider, a spokesman for the Pakistan Olympic Association.

Pakistan has been hit by a wave of suicide bomb attacks by militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban since an army assault on a radical mosque in Islamabad last July in which more than 100 people were killed.

The Olympic association had hoped to hold a torch run along Islamabad’s main boulevard in front of Parliament, but the event will now be held inside a nearby sports stadium.

India has also shortened the route of its torch relay on Thursday, fearing that Tibetan protesters might try to disrupt the procession.

The final route is still to be announced, but media reported the torch will travel less than a third of the original 9-kilometer distance, or 5 miles, in a heavily guarded New Delhi neighborhood.

Via International Herald Tribune