Armed police are to test their response to a Tunisia-style gun rampage on the streets of London, as the Government warns an attack on the UK is highly likely.
Some streets around the Aldwych area of central London will be closed today to allow first responders to deal with a simulated attack on members of the public and emergency services.
Operation Strong Tower will involve more than 1,000 officers in what the Metropolitan Police said would be a “multi-agency exercise to test the emergency services’ response to a marauding terrorist firearms attack in London”.
The Met added that the exercise had been many months in the planning and was not a response to the events in Tunisia, or any specific intelligence of an attack in the UK.
Ever since the gun and grenade massacre in Mumbai in 2008, UK police and security services have feared a similar attack here.
The Mumbai atrocity left more than 160 dead and 300 injured after a group of terrorists went on the rampage, shooting and bombing their way through a train station, shopping centre and hotels.
Deputy assistant commissioner Maxine de Brunner, who is coordinating the London exercise, said: “We are testing ourselves. This is meant to be a challenge for ourselves and other emergency services.
“This exercise is not based on any intelligence. We are not responding to something we’ve heard. We have been planning this for many months.”
The threat level in the UK from international terrorism was raised to ‘severe’ last autumn, the second highest level.
However, a former armed officer for the Met told Sky News the UK lacked adequate armed response units outside of London.
Simon Morgan said: “If you look at the incident that has just taken place in Tunisia, that attack lasted seven minutes from the first shots being fired to the subject being neutralised.
“In London, that response time could be achieved, but as you go further out, if we look at the situation with the Derrick Bird shootings in Cumbria five years ago, the armed response was at the side of the county.
“So in that scenario, you could be looking at many deaths before armed officers arrive.”
Mr Morgan, who now runs Trojan Consultancy, a company providing close protection and security advice, added that the Met’s armed capability had been significantly reduced in recent years.
He said the force was now urgently trying to boost numbers.
“A lot of experienced firearms officers left after the Olympics so it takes some time to get back to that level, both in terms of operational experience as a police officer and then taking your capabilities further as a firearms officer,” he said.
‘Severe’ means a terrorist attack is highly likely and reflects the increased threat from the likes of the so-called Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq.
The threat level would only be raised to its highest point, ‘critical’, if intelligence suggested an attack was imminent.
As the UK prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 attacks in London, intelligence analysts have warned the threat of an attack is greater now than it has been for many years.
However, that threat has evolved and the semi-sophisticated large-scale bomb plots are far less frequent.
The main threat now is focused on less sophisticated knife and gun attacks, like the murder of fusilier Lee Rigby in south-east London in 2013.
These are much more difficult for the police and security services to detect, as they often involve less in the way of planning and plotters can attack at a moment’s notice.
More than 700 young Muslim men and some women have travelled to Syria and Iraq in recent months to join up with groups including IS.
The Government believes about half that number have already returned to Britain and that some will pose a threat to the public.
The armed exercise in London may not be a specific response to the events in Tunisia, but that attack and the recent terrorist shootings in France are a sobering example of the type of threat which the UK also faces.