Police expect Mumbai-style terror attack on City of London

[Smits]

Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital.

In a briefing in the City of London 12 days ago, a senior detective from SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, said: “Mumbai is coming to London.”

The detective said companies should anticipate a shooting and hostage-taking raid “involving a small number of gunmen with handguns and improvised explosive devices”.

The warning — the bluntest issued by police — has underlined an assessment that a terrorist cell may be preparing an attack on London early next year.

It was issued by the Met through its network of “security forums”, which provide business leaders, local government and the emergency services with counter-terrorism advice.

During a “commando-style” raid by 10 gunmen on hotels and cafes in Mumbai in November 2008, 174 people were killed and more than 300 injured over three days.

Officials now report an increase in “intelligence chatter” — communications captured by electronic eavesdropping agencies. One senior security adviser said the police warnings had intensified and become much more specific in the past fortnight.

“Before, there has been speculation. Now we are getting what appears to be a definite plot to carry out a firearms attack on London,” he said.

Earlier this year, police, military and intelligence services held an exercise in Kent to see whether they could defeat a commando raid in London by terrorists.

“The exercise brought out to those taking part that the capability doesn’t exist to deal with that situation should it arise,” said a military source.

Security sources said concerns had been raised by “chatter” on a prominent jihadist website two weeks ago.

One contributor suggested fighters could use automatic weapons to strike places such as nightclubs, sporting venues and Jewish centres.

In an online discussion hosted on December 2, another contributor invited suggestions for carrying out “guerrilla warfare” and proposed “a group of mujaheddin raid police stations and fire at them”.

Another said: “Make sure that all those at the location are of age, that there are no children and so on. Insist on the locations and times where no Muslims or children are to be expected.

“If machine guns are available, and explosive and expertise for [explosives] are not available, this is a good way ... The [Mumbai] operation is the ideal scenario for operations you are talking about.”

A third contributor said targets should be “chosen in a studied manner”.

He added: “In general, targeting economic joints and intelligence centres if possible has priority over police stations.”

The Met is understood to be struggling to draw up effective plans to deal with the challenge of mass shootings followed by a prolonged siege with terrorists prepared to kill their hostages and themselves.

In Mumbai, many victims were killed in the first half hour of the attack. The Met is concerned that it will be much longer before the SAS, which has traditionally dealt with terrorist sieges in London, would arrive from its base at Regent’s Park barracks.

Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism sub-committee, said the threat was “very real”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6962867.ece


Article is 3 days old. Quite alarming and raises many concerns if you ask me, i havn;t heard anything else, just seen this.

[-:Undertaker:-]

One will come, but more fool us (or more so our politicians) for allowing open borders in which islamic extremists can easily get into the United Kingdom via either our own floppy immigration controls (which don't exist) or through the free-movement around the European Union scheme. We don't have any idea who or how many nutters are in this country and entering this country as we speak now.

Our country couldn't handle a Mumbai-style attack anyway, could you imagine our police having a shootout with crazy nutcase terrorists? I certainly can't.

[Smits]

Our country couldn't handle a Mumbai-style attack anyway, could you imagine our police having a shootout with crazy nutcase terrorists? I certainly can't.

Nor do i want to.


I really don't think we can prevent these kind of things forever, it's bound to happen sometime. It's just too easy.

[Oleh]

Hopefully it wont happen when im in london for new year, be scary if it did

[Ardemax]

Why don't we just fight back, nuke I say!

[Smits]

Why don't we just fight back, nuke I say!

No. Not clever at all.

[Gullable]

nah its too risky for them if the goverment know and everything, i dont live in london so... is it buisnesses or w.e?

[Seatherny]

By that news article, it looks like they havent even picked a target or how to attack it so it seems like its in very early stages :S
And which idiots discusses those things in a forum :S to me, it seems like some idiots trying to be clever.

And even if it was true, I can't see them carrying it out now, knowing the police are onto them.

[alexxxxx]

i love it how undertaker seems to think the european union has some sort of effect on the ability of terrorists to attack the city of london. i thought you'd be happy about them attacking the city anyway because that's where the bankers have stolen all your money. :rolleyes: you think people who are extremists make it clear to the border agencies when they come in? or is the colour of their skin that gives it away?

the police will be more prepared for this than the Indians. we've had terrorist attacks before by the IRA.

[-:Undertaker:-]

i love it how undertaker seems to think the european union has some sort of effect on the ability of terrorists to attack the city of london. i thought you'd be happy about them attacking the city anyway because that's where the bankers have stolen all your money. :rolleyes: you think people who are extremists make it clear to the border agencies when they come in? or is the colour of their skin that gives it away?

the police will be more prepared for this than the Indians. we've had terrorist attacks before by the IRA.

Of course it does, when you don't have control of your own borders then you dont know what kind of nutters are entering the country, hence why France throws them all to the coast and waits for us to accept them because nobody else in Europe actually wants any of these people. We have no idea what these people are like, who they are or what their intentions are.

On the banks, no actually I don't although you certainly would because you support a federal europe but deny that the people should have any say in its creation, well heres a thought - nobody actually wants this european project. On the actual point, the cycle of capitalism needs bust to boom again, and the same thing will happen again, and again and again and would of happened (and needed to happen) under any government, whether it was Labour, the Conservatives or even UKIP. I don't blame the government for the capitalist cycle, I blame nobody. What I do blame the government for is the way it has handled the economy for the past decade or so and the way it handled the downturn.

On extremists, would you be more likely to suspect a young Pakistani man or a 80 year old British woman?

I could even turn it around, if the threat we were facing right now was the IRA, would you suspect a 80 year old nigerian woman or a young irishman?

Common sense before PC politics.