Counter Terrorism Command

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) is a Specialist Operations branch within the British Metropolitan Police Service, established as a result of a merge of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch (SO12) and the Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) to form a single counter-terrorism unit. It brought together the intelligence gathering capability and the investigative arm, in order to combat the very serious nature of the terrorist threat in the UK. The Command's official police designation is SO15. The new Unit has over 1,500 Police Officers and staff, and a number of investigators based overseas. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke is the current Head of the Counter Terrorism Command.

1 Responsibilities
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Responsibilities

According to the Counter Terrorism Command's website, its responsibilities are ^[1]:

To bring to justice those engaged in terrorist, domestic extremism and related offences.
To provide a proactive and reactive response to terrorism, domestic extremism and related offences, including the prevention and disruption of such activity.
Support the National Co-ordination of Terrorist Investigations outside London.
To gather and exploit intelligence on terrorism and extremism in London.
To assess, analyse and develop intelligence to aid operational activity.
To engage in partnership with London’s varying communities in order to understand their concerns and to provide reassurance and support where needed.
To provide specialist security advice internally and externally.
To provide an explosive ordnance disposal and CBRN capability in London.
To assist the British MI5 Security Service and MI6 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in fulfilling their statutory roles.
To be the police single point of contact for international partners in counter-terrorism matters
Assisting in the protection of British interests overseas and the investigation of attacks against them.