MI5, police and SAS practise for a 'Beslan' siege
The Guardian (UK) ^ | February 4, 2007 | Jamie Doward and Antony Barnett
guardian.co.uk
The intelligence services fear that Britain could be subject to a Beslan-style siege, with multiple hostages forced to plead for their lives on camera.
Whitehall sources have said that the threat is considered so credible that MI5, the police and the SAS have conducted at least two mock counter-terrorism exercises to work out how to deal with such an eventuality.
The last exercise, shortly before Christmas, took place at an RAF base near Chester. Five police forces were involved in an operation that envisaged an international conference being stormed by terrorists, who then held a group of children hostage in a creche wired with explosives.
Operation Northern Synergy saw a number of police chiefs assume the Gold Command - ultimate responsibility for co-ordinating the response. The commanders liaised with the government's Cobra committee, which is activated during times of national crisis. In the scenario the terrorists were equipped with mobile phones and a satellite uplink that allowed them to beam pictures of the hostages on to television screens. The operation ended with a decision to send in the SAS.
'This scenario is something that is very much on the radar screen,' said one counter-terrorism source. 'We have envisaged a British Beslan for several years.' Beslan in south-west Russia was the scene of a horrific siege when on 1 September, 2004, 1,200 schoolchildren and adults were taken hostage by Muslim terrorists. The siege resulted in the security services storming the school and the deaths of 344 of the hostages.
Growing fears that domestic terrorists could seize hostages in Britain and parade them on television and websites were underlined last week when police conducted a series of raids across the West Midlands.
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