New York authorities are preparing an 'army' of police officers for large-scale rival demonstrations at Ground Zero.
Thousands of opponents and supporters of a planned 13-storey Islamic centre set to be built nearby are expected to flood the site on the site on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks.
'We want to keep everyone in their corners. You don't want the opposing sides to clash,' an NYPD spokesman told the New York Post.
'All eyes are going to be on New York City that day. No one wants to see a fight on September 11.'
No expense would be spared to ensure the protests remained peaceful, the spokesman said.
He added: 'There'll be an army of cops down there.'
Several hundred officers will police Park Place between West Broadway and Broadway, the site of the highly-controversial mosque.
Anger has previously boiled over at the site, with opponents believing its presence would be insulting to the almost 3,000 victims of the 9/11 airline hijackings.
The row led to a related international furore when a Florida-based evangelical church organised a Burn-a-Koran Day, in part to protest against the planned mosque.
Terry Jones today said he would cancel the action due to be held tomorrow after days of condemnation by political and religious leaders around the world.
The planned burning of copies of the Muslim holy book has also sparked furious protests in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Islamic nations.
In a bid to defuse the related rows, New York tycoon Donald Trump claimed he attempted to buy out a major investor in the real estate partnership that controls the site.
However, his bid was refused to almost instantly.
'This is just a cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight,' said Wolodymyr Starosolsky, a lawyer for the investor, Hisham Elzanaty.
In a letter released by Trump's publicist, the real estate investor told Elzanaty that he would buy his stake in the lower Manhattan building for 25 percent more than whatever he paid.
'I am making this offer as a resident of New York and citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one (because it is not), but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse,' the letter said.
Trump also attached a condition to his offer, saying that as part of the deal, the backers of the project would need to promise that any new mosque they constructed would be at least five blocks farther away from the World Trade Centre site.
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