LONDON: Britain will intensify efforts to stop cross-border arms smuggling after last week’s deadly attacks by Islamist militants in Paris and update its security protocols to deal with such incidents, Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said.
Cameron held a meeting to review the Paris attacks to assess the risks of something similar happening in Britain at which the police and other agencies agreed to update their training exercises for such incidents. “They also discussed the risk posed by firearms, agreeing that we should step up our efforts with other countries to crackdown on the illegal smuggling of weapons across borders,” a spokesman for Cameron said.
The Paris attacks, in which journalists and policemen were among those killed, began with a shooting attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, Jan. 7, and ended with a hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket. Britain raised its terrorism alert in August to the second-highest level, meaning an attack is “highly likely”.