Wary of copycat attacks in New York after the Mumbai carnage, US' largest police department here has launched a counterterrorism initiative training
Wary of copycat attacks in New York after the Mumbai carnage, US' largest police department here has launched a counterterrorism initiative training officers in tactics for close quarters combat and rescuing hostages in hotels and other high-rise buildings.
As part of the initiative, the famed New York Police Department(NYPD) is training a new team of officers with semi-automatic rifles loaded with armour-piercing bullets.
Post-26/11, the department decided to train about 130 reinforcements from its Organized Crime Control Bureau with Ruger Mini-14s in case terrorists even larger than the one that struck India's financial capital struck here. Police academy recruits will get a tutorial on how to secure assault weapons recovered in combat situations or, in a pinch, how to shoot them, the department said.
The NYPD's 400 Emergency Service Unit officers already can carry fully automatic Colt M4 rifles which are described as "the weapon of the 21st century soldier."
The NYPD also has begun videotaping the interiors of large hotels so emergency service officers can learn their layouts and match the guiles of terrorists who, as in Mumbai, may have done surveillance. It is also exploring ways to disrupt cell phone service "in a pinpointed way against terrorists who are using them."
Police commissioner Raymond Kelly has already said there were similarities between Mumbai and New York -- country's financial capital, densely populated, multi-cultural metropolis, a hub for entertainment industry, and also a port city.
"Terrorists are thinking creatively about new tactics," Police commissioner Raymond Kelly said recently. "So must we," he said weeks after the NYPD rushed investigators to India to see if there were any security lessons for New York.
Local authorities believe New York City could be a potential target for terrorists.
Security authorities in the US are struck by how the 10 gunmen calmly caused so much mayhem by relying on cell-phone communication and Chinese knockoff AK-47s.
Kelly has also said he is looking into technologies that can disrupt cell phones and other communication devices of the terrorists in a pinpointed manner at the time of such attacks.
"When lives are at stake, law enforcement needs to find ways to disrupt cell phones and other communications in a pin-pointed way against terrorists using them," Kelly told members of the US Senate last month during a Congressional hearing on lessons learnt from Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Kelly said the NYPD has taken the Mumbai attack very seriously and already has had several round of exercises based on the lessons learnt from India's 9/11.
NYPD has also visited several major hotels to document the walkthroughs on video camera, filming entrances and exits, lobbies, unoccupied guest rooms, and banquet halls.
"We plan to use the videos as training tools. Further hundreds of private security cameras were now being monitored at a newly opened coordination center in downtown Manhattan."
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