The threat level in the United Kingdom has been raised and Soldiers have also been deployed on streets in bid to prevent further attacks.
Operation Temperer is a plan to deploy troops to support police officers in key locations following a major terrorist attack. It was put into effect for the first time following the Manchester Arena bombing.
The plan provides for up to 5,100 soldiers to be deployed to “augment armed police officers engaged in protective security duties” at key sites in major UK cities.
Threat levels were originally produced by MI5’s Counter-Terrorism Analysis Centre for internal use within the British government. Assessments known as Security Service Threat Reports or Security Service Reports were issued to assess the level of threat to British interests in a given country or region. They had six levels: Imminent, High, Significant, Moderate, Low and Negligible.
Following terrorist attacks in Indonesia in 2002, the system was criticised by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament as insufficiently clear and needing to be of greater use to “customer departments”.
| Threat level | Response | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | An attack is expected imminently. |
| Maximum protective security measures to meet specific threats and to minimise vulnerability and risk. Critical may also be used if a nuclear attack is expected. | |
| Severe | An attack is highly likely. |
| Additional and sustainable protective security measures reflecting the broad nature of the threat combined with specific business and geographical vulnerabilities and judgements on acceptable risk. | |
| Substantial | An attack is a strong possibility. | |||
| Moderate | An attack is possible, but not likely. |
| Routine protective security measures appropriate to the business concerned. | |
| Low | An attack is very unlikely. | |||
Arse covering in overdrive from a government who knew of the perpetrators and did nothing.
May must appear strong despite all the evidence to the contrary.
It does look bad but we never know the full story. There are only so many people that the UK intelligence services can keep under close observation and I suspect that they have far more persons of genuine interest than they could handle even with double or triple the resources. How are we to ever know how many other even-more-likely-to-do-harm suspects were prioritised over this one and whether the monitoring of those other suspects prevented multiple bigger attacks than the Manchester one. Intelligence services staff must be making agonising decisions every day about how to allocate resources and however many resources we pile in it’s never going to be enough to get complete coverage. I’m afraid that if we do want to really enable the security services then things like the “snoopers charter” need to be passed and probably go a lot further than proposed.
Frankly I’m amazed that we’ve managed to fend off an attack for so long given the UK’s extensive involvement in Iraq, Afganistan, Lybia & Syria. Was it someone from the IRA who said something along the lines of “the UK intelligence services need to be lucky every day to stop us, we only need to be lucky once to get through”? That is still true today.
Hi Julian,
I absolutely agree 100%. We don’t see what goes on behind the scenes and never will – at least fully. Are mistakes made? Sure – but show me an intelligence service anywhere in the world who hasn’t made one at some point. The British public are blessed to have some of the finest intelligence services in the world and instead of beating up on them, we should be appreciative of all the attacks they HAVE prevented that we knew nothing about and allowed us to go about our daily lives unhindered. Men and women of the police, MI5, MI6 and others put their lives on the line for us day-in and day-out and I for one am very thankful and they have my fullest admiration.
At the end of the day, the only way this will end completely is when the Muslim community in the UK, in Europe and throughout the world stands up and says enough is enough.
Hi David,
“The British public are blessed to have some of the finest intelligence services in the world…”
Yup, that’s been my view for years and I hold the same view today. As for your tribute that followed – beautifully put – I couldn’t agree more.
I don’t think Joe said it was the security services fault lads, he said quite clearly it’s the governments fault.
And it is 100%, cuts cuts cuts cuts to police and every other public service but who cares as long as the leader looks like a “statesman” they will get your vote hey..pathetic..it’s time people smarten up and look at policies, manifestos, public services and then make their choice.
People thinking it’s all British intelligence that does this, yes they are the best we have but police detectives also do major anti terrorist work and they have been savagely cut in numbers under the tories, so seen as the Sun loves this headline so much…
Theresa May as home secretary, David Cameron as PM and every person that voted for them and in essence voted to make tens of thousands of police officers who keep us safe redundant…
YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS
And that is relating to how the attack itself could possibly have been stopped, how about the bomber himself..
He was the product of the US and UK overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and “regime change” policy in Syria. He was a radicalized Libyan whose family fled Gaddafi’s secular Libya, and later he trained to be an armed “rebel” in Syria, fighting for the US and UK “regime change” policy toward the secular Assad government.
The suicide attacker was the direct product of US and UK interventions in the greater Middle East.
That is FACT, have a look at the voting history in the commons and see if your MP voted for it in Libya and Syria, whether Labour, tory of whoever email them and tell them how disgusted you are, do something about it to try and stop this.