PORTLAND – As National Guard personnel prepare to provide security at commercial airports in Maine, a Portland official is pushing to have the Guard assigned also to patrol the city’s marine terminals and piers.

Portland transportation administrator Jeffrey Monroe said that if the state is going to deploy troops to the aviation sector in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it should look after the maritime sector as well.

Monroe, who made his request in a letter to Gov. Angus King, said the Portland Ocean Terminal and the International Marine Terminal on opposite ends of the waterfront are potential targets.

“These are vulnerable areas,” Monroe said of the two sites with deep-water piers, where large ships can dock to pick up or drop off loads.

Both terminals have private security officers on duty around the clock. Police also are there when cruise ships come in to dock, he said.

He said the city’s request should be viewed as a precaution, not a sign of panic. He said it would require only a couple of Guardsmen per shift to patrol each facility.

A spokesman for King said the governor apparently hadn’t seen Monroe’s letter yet, but would review any such request with Maj. Gen. Joseph Tinkham, commissioner of the state Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management and adjutant general of the Guard.

Meanwhile, the state is awaiting more Federal Aviation Administration direction on how Guardsmen will be used at airports, said Maj. Eldon Hardwick, deputy chief of staff for the Maine Army National Guard and Maine Air National Guard.

Monroe is pushing for Guardsmen to provide perimeter, terminal and aircraft security at the Portland International Jetport. But initial plans call for just one armed Guardsman assigned during business hours to each passenger checkpoint at airports, where the presence is deemed necessary.

The jetport has drawn attention because two hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, took a connecting flight from Portland to Boston’s Logan International Airport before helping to seize control of American Airlines Flight 11 and crash it into the World Trade Center.