Due to security anxieties, tensions are boiling over on the freezing coast city of Sochi, Russia, the host of the Winter Olympics.

The Winter Olympics start Thursday and run through Feb. 23 in a city of 350,000 people, along the Black Sea and at the western edge of the Caucasus Mountains. The region has been filled with conflict between native Islamic peoples and Russian forces for years.

The biggest concern is with Doku Umarov, described by some as “Russia’s bin Laden.” Six months ago the Chechen rebel leader threatened to attack civilians in Russia and urged Islamic separatists to use force to disrupt the Olympics, which he described as “satanic dances on the bones of our ancestors” in a video released over the Internet.

Since Umarov’s threat, three suicide bombers have killed more than 40 people and injured more than 100 in Volgograd, a major transportation hub 430 miles northeast of Sochi. The two most recent attacks came just a few weeks ago.

The U.S. hired a private security firm, which is not being named, to have as many as five aircrafts on standby in case team members need to evacuate Sochi.

To protect the next month’s Winter Olympics, the Russian government has set up a heavily armed perimeter around Sochi, and The Federal Security Service Head of the Russian Federation has said 100,000 security personnel would be on duty at the Games and around Sochi.

The secure zone, which is 60 miles long and 25 miles wide, will mean near-total surveillance of residents, visitors and athletes. Drones will be deployed in the skies, speedboats will patrol the coast and sonar will reportedly be used to detect submarines.

The American Navy has also contributed to the security armada, by giving their full cooperation to the Russian government. Two Yankee ships have been deployed off the coast of Sochi in the Baltic Sea, to be called upon if necessary, for air support.

The Games have long been a high-prioritized target for terrorists. At the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage and killed by a Palestinian terrorist group.

Even when the Summer Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996, American Eric Rudolph detonated a bomb at Centennial Olympic Park. The blast resulted in the deaths of two people and injured more than 100. Rudolph is currently serving life in prison.

Since 776 BC the Olympics have been the coming together of the world’s best sport athletes, to compete against one another, for the ultimate gold medal. However this year the Olympics are threatened by an exterior force, which could cause the athletes to spend unneeded energy worrying about their own safety.

Sadly, there is nothing anyone can do but watch and hope that everything goes as planned, and that every athlete will return home safely whether or not they are victorious in the games.