Met Predict Mumbai Style Terror Attack on London

[Simon Cashmere]

Police expect Mumbai-style terror attack on City of London
New Scotland Yard, London
David Leppard

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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.
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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”.

Wonder who could be behind such dastardly plans - must be those neonazi soccer hooligans, or some really savage buddhists. The debate has been whether or not there should be civilian attacks only, or whether the more palatable attacks on army bases should instead be permitted.

There will be an attempt, its only a matter of time. Hopefully our security forces can stop them, but they have a lot of people to watch.

Taken from the Sunday Times, Times online, that well known bastion of the Far, Far, Far Far Far Right.

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

If AQ is part of the planning, it is likely that the attacks will be in a number of places at once, say, 4 or 5. Mumbai concentrated on train stations and hotels, but I think it is likely they will target establishments that serve alcohol to minimise Islamic casualties. My guess would be clubs, bars, things like that.

[Applesmack]

I just love how the West always needs a boogieman...

[Farnan]

I don't think anyone denied the existence of Islamic Terrorists...

And hopefully the Met catch them before they execute, and if they do the SAS does better than the Indian police.

[Simon Cashmere]

And hopefully the Met catch them before they execute, and if they do the SAS does better than the Indian police.

I kind of felt sorry for the Indian police. Totally outresourced, outgunned, outmanned and outplanned. There was some tremendous courage shown by many, who fought hard and some police were killed dying to save foreigners from these terrorists. They often only had bolt action .303s against the terrorist AKMs and AK47s.

The head of the Anti-terror squad was killed leading his troops into battle.

[Farnan]

I kind of felt sorry for the Indian police. Totally outresourced, outgunned, outmanned and outplanned. There was some tremendous courage shown by many, who fought hard and some police were killed dying to save foreigners from these terrorists. They often only had bolt action .303s against the terrorist AKMs and AK47s.

The head of the Anti-terror squad was killed leading his troops into battle.

Not saying they didn't try hard, just didn't have the equipment and training they needed.

[Simon Cashmere]

Not saying they didn't try hard, just didn't have the equipment and training they needed.

Absolutely, please don't think I was taking a shot at you, just saying that I do appreciate the efforts the Indian police made. They mostly did a good job in the circumstances. India is absolute chaos at the best of times, and so if a group of people randomly appear and start shooting, its very hard for anyone to respond. They seemed also to hijack a police van at some stage and drive around in that.

Its one thing to be worrying about beggars, street vendors and directing traffic and another to suddenly find yourself having to shoot back in a war zone.

Cascading attacks, that is a series of rolling attacks can lead a city into meltdown, which is what AQ well knows. A hallmark of the AQ attack is multiple attacks at once, and then, a follow up attack if possible in close proximity.

[mrmouth]

And hopefully the Met catch them before they execute, and if they do the SAS does better than the Indian police.

This is from more than a year ago, started a thread back then...

Britain unprepared for Mumbai-style attack, former head of SAS says

The former SAS commander, a lieutenant colonel who was involved in providing support to the Metropolitan police following both the 7/7 and 21/7 London tube attacks, said that the UK does not have enough of the right type of counter-terrorist forces in London or other major cities to deal with a multi-site, and mobile terrorist incident such as we seen in Mumbai.

The officer, who won the Military Cross fighting al-Qaeda units in Afghanistan in 2001, and spent most of the last three years in Iraq fighting against the same enemy said: "The doomsday scenario that we always presented in planning was multiple and mobile incidents in London by suicidal armed terrorists because very quickly they could achieve a lot of fatalities before anyone could pinpoint the threats and react effectively.

[mongrel]

This is from more than a year ago, started a thread back then...

Britain unprepared for Mumbai-style attack, former head of SAS says

Interesting. Nice find.

Why is the Times recirculating a year-old story?

[Akhil_The_Great]

yea gun violence is really low in india, so cops down there don't have any SWAT teams on standby, but now they just upped their budget and will try to do a better job.

in '84 terrorists where hiding in the golden temple, the army just used tanks to fight them because they arn't trained enough

[Babur]

yea gun violence is really low in india, so cops down there don't have any SWAT teams on standby, but now they just upped their budget and will try to do a better job.

in '84 terrorists where hiding in the golden temple, the army just used tanks to fight them because they arn't trained enough

the problem is that there is still too much red tape

[Exarch]

i'll be surprised if it happens especially after the security after the 05 attacks

[Admiral Piett]

Any word on who might be perpetrating this? Sounds like these guys are either Army of the Righteous or wannabes of this group.

Easy for you to say, Total Fanatic. Your country hasn't had to deal with most likely.

[Poach]

If they're so concerned about the SAS taking time to deploy from their base, why doesn't the SAS just set up a temporary base somewhere in London? Once the anti-terror intelligence chaps tell them the danger has passed they can head back to their home barracks. Seems a sensible plan to me...

I think the terrorists (if this is a serious plan and the "chatter" wasn't just a hypothetical discussion) will be thinking twice now that their plans are publicly known and the police and military are preparing for the event.

[justicar5]

If they're so concerned about the SAS taking time to deploy from their base, why doesn't the SAS just set up a temporary base somewhere in London? Once the anti-terror intelligence chaps tell them the danger has passed they can head back to their home barracks. Seems a sensible plan to me...

I think the terrorists (if this is a serious plan and the "chatter" wasn't just a hypothetical discussion) will be thinking twice now that their plans are publicly known and the police and military are preparing for the event.

I would be very surpirsed if the SAS doesn't have bases in or near london, but the chances of them advertising the fact to keep people happy is nil.

[mongrel]

I would be very surpirsed if the SAS doesn't have bases in or near london, but the chances of them advertising the fact to keep people happy is nil.

They do 21st SAS I think (Artists Rifles)

Looked at the story in detail.

Has anyone got the Patrick Mercer connection yet. If anyone has, they will know why the dog is suspicious.

I did some ferreting as this MP has form on , well I won't give it away for those who want to earn the rep point offered above.

And I did recall something familar about this.

Look at this story, dated 22 June 2009. More or less identical.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...shootings.html


Adding a few non-verifiable sources about a theoretical attack and viola the appearance of a brand new story for those who have totally forgotten what happened a few months ago.

( Did it mention London btw? I suppose "appears" might cut it, but can we not have an idea where this forum is so we can see for ourselves? No trace of the phrases on google so far.)

No other newspaper in England has taken this on. I would say this is churnalism, most likely for money as the government has no bad news to cover up this weekend.

[Watchman]

You know I'm kinda reminded of those fearmongering "alerts" and "warnings" - invariably lacking solid evidence and proof of anything at all and typically drawing on "anonymous sources" (as in unverifiable) - that the US media has by all accounts been regularly saturated with for much of the past decade...

Just sayin'.

[mongrel]

You know I'm kinda reminded of those fearmongering "alerts" and "warnings" - invariably lacking solid evidence and proof of anything at all and typically drawing on "anonymous sources" (as in unverifiable) - that the US media has by all accounts been regularly saturated with for much of the past decade...

Just sayin'.

Oddly enough the alert status remains unchanged. If there was a specific threat it would change from substantial to severe.

I think someone's been had.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter...-threat-level/

[Phier]

You know I'm kinda reminded of those fearmongering "alerts" and "warnings" - invariably lacking solid evidence and proof of anything at all and typically drawing on "anonymous sources" (as in unverifiable) - that the US media has by all accounts been regularly saturated with for much of the past decade...

Just sayin'.

Then we get the type of people who call it fear mongering and then after an attack happens, complain how incompetent the government people were.

Just sayin'.

[mongrel]

I only have one problem with this....Patrick Mercer


Rep to anyone who can explain why.

[Poach]

Because he voted a strong no in a climate change bill despite earlier signing up to something else that said he would help tackle it?