SAS snipers to guard against Nice-style attack at the top street festival
Popular carnival attended by more than a million people seen as soft target
SAS sniper teams equipped with armour-piercing bullets are being trained to stop speeding vehicles amid fears Britain could fall victim to a Nice-style terror attack.
Security experts believe major public events including London’s Notting Hill Carnival could be a soft target after an Isis leader urged “lone wolf” attackers to slaughter innocents in the UK.
Now SAS snipers have been trained to ‘take out’ speeding vehicles in crowds by shooting through the engine with special armour-piercing bullets.
Aides of London Mayor Sadiq Khan are reported to have particular concerns over the Carnival – which attracts more than a million people every August bank holiday weekend.
The new warning comes after two more people were arrested in connection with the Bastille Day attack in the south of France which left 84 dead.
A man and a woman are today being quizzed by French police as the country called up 12,000 police reservists to boost national security.
Neil Basu, the Met Police’s deputy assistant commissioner, said: “Every terrorist incident that happens worldwide we look at to see what the latest tactics and methodology are, and we think about whether that could happen here.”
Isis has claimed responsibility for the attack carried out by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.
The terror group’s official radio station, al-Bayan, has now warned that other “crusader states” in the West are also not safe.
Other senior Isis figures have also warned that civilians and crowds in the West are now legitimate targets.
In May, Isis chief Abu Muhammad al-Adnani said: ““Know that inside the lands of the belligerent crusaders there is no sanctity of blood and no existence of those so-called innocents.
“Know that your targeting [of] those who are called ‘civilians’ is more beloved to us and more effective, as it is more harmful and painful and a greater deterrent to them. So go forth!”
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