British police being trained for Mumbai-style attack

LONDON - British police are being trained and armed with more powerful weapons to prepare for any future “Mumbai-style” terror attack in the country, a media report said Tuesday.

Security chiefs in the country have ordered an acceleration in police training to prepare for any such attack in a public place, the BBC reported.

The development comes after intelligence sources said last month they had uncovered the early stages of an Al Qaeda plot to carry out co-ordinated attacks in Britain, France and Germany.

Suspects were planning to copy the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, where 10 gunmen went on rampage for nearly 60 hours, killing 166 people, the sources said.

According to the report, police armed response units are being given more powerful weapons.

“We keep security arrangements under constant review to take account of the threat, lessons we have learned and new challenges,” the Home Office said.

An official told the BBC that the Metropolitan Police had not been asked to do this before.

He said the job of the police would be to contain such a situation while the job of the SAS (Special Air Service), if called upon, would be to resolve it.

Former security minister Lord West said the police must be properly trained to deal with such terror attacks.

“These people, like the Mumbai terrorists, are a bit like soldiers, they do fire and support, move forward, all they want to do is kill as many people as possible, with slightly heavier weapons than our police have,” he said.