Posted on 09/05/2004 10:08:08 AM PDT by yonif
Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi has instructed head of police operations Cmdr. Berti Ohayun to appoint a team of senior officers to study the Russian school siege in Belsan, which claimed the lives of close to 400 innocent civilians last week.
Police held an exercise two months ago during which they practiced a similar hostage takeover to the one that took place in the Russian school. During the exercise, which took place at a community center, then-police chief Insp.-Gen. Shlomo Aharonishky was also checked to see if he was in top form. Officials noted that an exercise, which involves the Insp.-Gen. is a rare occurrence.
Head of emergency operations in the Israel Police, Asst.-Cmdr. Meir Ben-Yishai, said Sunday that the police are always in a state of preparations for events such as the Russian school siege.
"We are studying the event and just two months ago we held an exercise during which we practiced a more serious scenario than the one in Russia," Ben-Yishai said. "We are constantly preparing for such an event and are sensitive to a hostage takeover situation as well as dozens of other scenarios."
Ben-Yishai said that following the October 2002 Moscow theater siege during which close to 160 people were killed, Israel Police held exercises and wrote up an operations manual to instruct officers how to operate under similar circumstances.
Ben-Yishai added that the police are considering holding a new exercise in the near future involving a school hostage simulation following the events in Russia.
One wonders how effective abominations like this would be if school officials and parents were armed.
Hope they're not the only ones studying what happened.
Maybe school officials, but let's face it: parents walking their children to school in a normally peaceful environment are NOT taking weapons; why would they?
I was right. I knew it.
I meant this more "subjunctively." Not that they could HAVE BEEN armed, but that perhaps they (and WE) should, in future, BE armed.
Israel has had armed guards through the country's schools following a similar tragedy at Ma'alot in 1974. The security is very tight. But as you can see, the Israelis take nothing for granted.
No part of the world can any longer be considered a peaceful environment.
Schools, hospitals, nursing homes, churches. Nothing is off limits to the murdering bastards.
Well, if the Russians had laws like we do preventing guns in schools, the terrorists would have been forced to attack elsewhere.
And Sharon is a generous, compassionate, angel of mercy to care enough to share. He gets my medal of the month for heroic outreach.
An attack by a group of 30 well-armed and well-trained terrorists is likely to succeed against the security of any school. You simply can't afford to have sufficient defense at every school to defend against such an attack.
Furthermore, if the attackers are a determined suicide squad, they are likely to control the situation long enough to rig explosives and concentrate the hostages so that a large percentage of the hostages will die.
JPost.com » News » Security-Diplomacy » Article
Sep. 4, 2004 23:24 | Updated Sep. 5, 2004 23:53
Israel, Russia to discuss anti-terror cooperation
Israel is expected to offer humanitarian aid, increased intelligence cooperation, and antiterrorism expertise to visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday.
Lavrov, who replaced Igor Ivanov as Russia's foreign minister in March, arrived on Sunday night for a day of meetings as part of his first regional tour.
Israeli officials said that the tragic events in Beslan, as well as methods for fighting terrorism, will be at the top of agenda in meetings with Lavrov.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, and the two, according to a statement released by Sharon's office, agreed to increased cooperation between the two countries.
According to the statement, Sharon said there is a need for both diplomatic and intelligence efforts to destroy terror, and the two agreed to cooperation on matters relating to security, intelligence, and humanitarian issues.
Israeli diplomatic officials said that although there has been intelligence cooperation in the past, the Russians have been hesitant to take Israeli assistance and advice, saying that Chechen terror is a distinctly Russian problem.
The Israeli officials said that although the recent outrage in Beslan will lead to calls in the Russian press and on the Russian street for more cooperation with Israel, a distinction needs to be made. "You have to distinguish between public opinion in Russia, which wants to see more cooperation with Israel, and the Russian Foreign Ministry, which doesn't like comparisons made between the terror in Israel and that in Russia," the official said.
Israeli diplomatic officials said that Putin was referring to Israel in his address to the nation on Saturday, even though he didn't mention Israel by name, when he said that Russia needs to mobilize to fight terror. "Events in other countries have shown that terrorists meet the most effective resistance in places where they not only encounter the state's power but also find themselves facing an organized and united civil society," he said.
Sharon opened Sunday's cabinet meeting by condemning the terrorism in Russia.
"Last Friday, the entire world was shocked by the horrific massacre that was perpetrated by terrorists in Russia," Sharon said.
"It has been proven again that terrorism does not distinguish between blood and blood, between adults and children. Israel, which has been struggling against terrorism for many years, stands alongside the Russian people and sends its condolences," he said. "There is no justification for terrorism and this is the time for the free, just, and humanitarian world to unite and fight this horrific plague, which acknowledges neither borders nor limitations."
Sharon is slated to meet Lavrov, who was formerly Russia's envoy to the UN, on Monday. Lavrov is also scheduled to meet President Moshe Katsav, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, and Labor, Industry and Trade Minister Ehud Olmert. Because of the events in Beslan, he cut his trip to Israel by a day, and will be staying only one night, instead of two.
Lavrov will be leaving Monday evening for Damascus, where he is expected to deliver a message from Israel to the Syrians warning them to close down the terrorist offices operating out of Damascus.
Lavrov's trip has been in the works for some two months, and prior to the attack in Beslan he was expected to focus on the road map. Russia, which as a member of the Quartet along with the US, EU, and UN, is one of the road map's sponsors, is keen on ensuring that Sharon's disengagement plan is part of the road map, and not something that supplants it.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/P/Section/SectionIndex&cid=1078027574121
This kind of thing doesn't happen in Israel.
It did some time ago on a small scale.
Now teachers are armed.
The terrorists know that.
They also know our teachers are unarmed.
Pretty dumb to allow current US policy to remain, doncha think?
Yup
Did you notice at the Russian school massacre that the first people to start shooting were PARENTS of some of the kids.
Then the Military had no choice so they jumped in too.
Bravo to those Parents that protected their children from Terrorist Scum shooting them in the back.
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