Interesting developing situation around Birmingham

News reports are coming in of a large scale police operation on the M6 Toll Road outside Birmingham. A Megabus coach has been stopped by armed police and the bomb disposal squad after the driver called 999 to report a passenger pouring an unspecified liquid into a plastic bag. It seems to be a relatively innocuous incident, almost certainly the passenger having a crafty cigarette and not putting it out properly, but the response is interesting. The timing is the first point of interest. This morning Metropolitan police carried out a series of raids under anti-terrorism legislation around London arresting eight people. The two incidents appear unrelated, but highlight the level of preparedness amongst police forces across the UK in the run up to the Olympic Games in London in a couple of weeks. There is a little more to this Midlands incident though. The response time of the police units coming from Staffordshire was very rapid, and the first responded was an armed unit in an unmarked car closely followed by rapid response units and even the bomb disposal unit was on site with twenty minutes. This suggests intel of an incident in the area. We already know that MI5 have highlighted at least twenty potential terrorist cells operating in the UK, and the Syria/Greece situation seems to have raised the alert level even further.

At about the same time there were reports from a couple of businesses in the area that the internet went down and phone calls to the service providers got the response of a major technical fault on the network. Several people stuck in the jam that the incident caused also reported a temporary loss of mobile phone network coverage that seemed to coincide with an overflight of the area by a police helicopter. Now, we know that part of the security detail around excursions by the President of the United States involve the jamming of mobile phone radio broadcast towers, but this appears to be the first large scale deployment of this technology in the UK. It would make sense given the reports into the 7/7 London bombings and the use of mobile phones to trigger explosive devices but it would certainly be a shift in the level of response to suspected terrorist threats. It also ties in with reports of training being provided to G4S employees, the security firm formerly known as Group 4 Security, and the lead security partner for the Olympic Games.

Again these are early reports but infiltrators into G4S teams are reporting some pretty unusual training briefings regarding dealing with members of the public unable to use ther phones in emergency situations, and employees being trained in the use of military spec two way radio communication systems. This integration of military technology also makes sense given the deployment of several units of the British army, US special forces and United Nations specialist units in the area around London, and the use of surface to air Rapier missile systems for protection against attacks from the air, but it also, in light of the potential blocking of mobile phone communications suggests that preparations are in place for a major incident.

So, are todays events just a coincidence, an opportunistic live exercise for the Staffordshire police force, or something altogether more sinister? I guess only time will tell, but it certainly seems slightly odd to say the least!