Anti-terror allies set to mount biggest exercise
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=8&id=52022

The Times, London 
LONDON, Aug. 23. — One of the biggest international counter-
terrorist exercises ever mounted is to be staged by British, 
American and Canadian experts early next year. 
Thousands of police, servicemen, rescue experts and officials 
are expected to take part in the transatlantic operation code-
named Atlantic Blue and scheduled for late spring. 
Officials have told The Times, London that the exercise will 
last a week and that the scenario is expected to start with mock
terrorist attacks in the USA which then spread to Canada and 
Britain. 
Experts in Washington, London and Ottawa are now completing the 
scenario for the exercise but possible plots are thought to 
include a chemical, biological or radioactive attack using a so-
called “dirty bomb”, threatening serious disruption to transport
and communications. Others scenarios could include a series of 
hijacks that start in the USA and spread into the other two 
countries, or attacks like those of 9/11, carried out 
simultaneously on big national or international targets. 
The British Home Office now has a permanent planning team 
organising exercises and it has brought in police counter-
terrorist experts to design the scenarios based on intelligence 
assessments of Al-Qaida strategies. 
American, Canadian and British leaders may ask for additional 
tests to evaluate new equipment. Equipment was criticised last 
year after an exercise at Bank station in London. The capital 
will be the centre for the British part of the exercise, which 
will also test transatlantic liaison on intelligence and 
coordinated reaction to attacks in large cities. 
British officials say that the exercise will evaluate evacuation
plans, the handling of injured and dead and the restoration of 
essential services