The Olympic flame arrived here Tuesday amid heavy security as games officials in Beijing hinted for the first time the global relay could be abandoned amid protests over China's human rights record.

The symbolic flame arrived at San Francisco International Airport around 4:00 am (1100 GMT) for its only US stop, one day after the Olympic torch was snuffed out by officials five times in Paris.

Police guarded every entrance to the airport's international terminal and officers in riot gear patrolled outside the building, before the flame was whisked to a secret location ahead of Wednesday's torch relay.

A myriad of rights groups are planning to demonstrate at the San Francisco event, and the city got an early taste of the protests on Monday when three activists scaled the Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled huge pro-Tibet banners.

Pro-Tibet activists were holding several events in San Francisco on Tuesday which will culminate in a rally and candlelight vigil attended by Tibetan leaders, actor Richard Gere and archbishop Desmond Tutu at 6pm (0100 GMT).

Amid the protests, Olympic chiefs earlier Tuesday raised the prospect for the first time of abandoning the ensuing international legs of the Beijing Games torch relay.



IOC president Jacques Rogge confirmed officials would discuss the relay in meetings planned this week after the disruptive protests in London and Paris, and with more demonstrations expected on the upcoming legs.

"We will discuss this and we will see what we have to do now that we have had six or seven legs," Rogge told reporters.

"We will see what kind of conclusions we have to take from that. I would not want to speculate about what we are going to discuss. We will make an analysis of what has happened and then we will draw the necessary conclusions."

Pro-Tibet campaigners have shadowed the flame from the moment it was lit in Greece on March 24, as demonstrators accuse China of violating human rights and protest a crackdown in Tibet that they say has left 150 people dead. China says "rioters" killed 20 people.

International leaders have also come under pressure to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing on August 8.

US President George W. Bush was challenged on Monday by Senator Hillary Clinton to skip the ceremony, but the US leader has consistently said he plans to attend, arguing that the Olympics is about sport not politics.

However the White House on Tuesday did not rule out the possibility of Bush missing the event, saying that it had never said he would attend the event.

Asked by reporters if Bush would attend the opening ceremony, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "We haven't provided any schedule on the president's trip."

On Monday, the torch relay was dramatically cut short in Paris due to disruptions by hundreds of campaigners protesting over Tibet, media freedom and other issues which forced officials in Paris to douse the torch five times.

Protesters also disrupted the previous day's leg in London, while activists have promised more of the same in San Francisco on Wednesday and later on in Australia, India, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere.

Rights groups planning protests in San Francisco on Wednesday stressed they were planning "peaceful, non-violent" demonstrations.

The Save Darfur Coalition, which is lobbying China to exert more pressure on Sudan's leaders to end violence in the country, categorically ruled out any attempt to disrupt the San Francisco relay.

"I can tell you absolutely unequivocally that we have no plans to interrupt or disrupt the torch relay," coalition spokesman Allyn Brooks LaSure told AFP.

"We believe we can get our message across without interrupting the event."

Nyunt Than, president of the Burmese American Democratic Alliance, said the group was planning "non-violent direct action."

"That means civil disobedience. We might be sitting across the street but that is not violent," Than said.

Chinese officials have reacted strongly to the idea of stifling their effort to stage the most ambitious Olympic torch relay ever, visiting 19 countries plus China over a 137,000 kilometer (85,000 mile) journey.

"The disruption and sabotage of the torch relay is a challenge to the spirit of the Olympic charter, the world laws, and peace-loving people around the world," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

Beijing Games spokesman Sun Weide insisted the relay would continue "with the support of people all over the world."

"No force can stop the torch relay of the Beijing Games," he said.