Police given 'shoot to kill' orders in new terror alert

Police have been ordered to "shoot to kill" suicide bombers following intelligence warnings that an al-Qa'eda terrorist attack in Britain may be imminent.

The Telegraph can reveal that Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, placed his force on its highest alert last week.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/10/nterr10.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/08/10/ixnewstop.html/news/2003/08/10/nterr10.xml

Politically motivated terra lerts come to Britain

noone needs a "distraction" more than Poodle. I wonder just how far he is willing to go to please his neo-con masters ?

Wow talk about a sell out of your own country.

Oh yey, that will send a mesage. And of course, we will be amazed at how many black folk waving around their wallests will be confused with suisde bombers.

Bloody, bloody hell.

There was hysteria years ago when someone discovered that there was a "shoot to kill" policy in Northern Ireland. Well big WOW.

The police in the UK are not usually armed. If a situation is sufficiently serious then arms may be deployed (with authorisation). If it gets to the stage where the specially trained police marksmen decide that they must fire then they will always FIRE TO KILL YOU.

There is no point whatsoever in wounding a suspect who you sincerely believe is intending to kill you, a colleague or innocent civilians. Using a firearm is regarded as using "deadly force" and is always a last resort.

However, the statement, "One senior officer said: "He's made it plain that if we think we are facing a suicide bomber, we should shoot first and ask questions later." is either a misunderstanding or just plain wrong.

It is an absurd policy - I'm sure that they've been told to be on their guard for suicide bombers and to kill them when they are thoroughly convinced that they are faced with one. They have not been told to kill anyone wearing a rucksack and offered immunity from prosecution.