Nick Hopkins: London - Snipers to Patrol Skies over Olympic Games

Military snipers will be on alert during the London Olympics, and if required, will shoot pilots of low-flying aircraft that might be involved in terrorist attacks, it emerged on Monday. A team of seven snipers is being given "comprehensive on-the-ground and in-the training" as part of the all encompassing security operation being undertaken by the police and the army. General Sir Nick Parker, who is in charge of coordinating the armed forces during the 2012 Games, described the role of the snipers as he revealed the six sites where anti-aircraft missiles may be based as part of the security operation. The four that are in open spaces, at Black-heath, Lea Valley reservoir, Shooters Hill and Epping Forest, will be home to a battery of Rapier surface-to-air missiles, which are the UK's primary air defense weapon. Smaller high-velocity missiles (HVMs) will be put on the top of residential buildings in Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. Parker said the missiles would only be fired as a "very last resort", and any decision to use them would have to come from the "very highest level" -on the authority of the prime minister. At a briefing at Scotland Yard with assistant commissioner Chris Allison, Parker said it was right to plan for worse-case scenarios, and identified two "broad airborne threats" the military could help with. "The focus is on air security of the Olympic Park. The two threats are a large 9/11 type of threat which is integrated into existing security plans. Then there is the smaller, what we would describe as the 'low and slow', that is particularly what we need to practice over London." Parker said RAF Typhoon fighters and the anti-aircraft missile systems would help to deter the larger threats, and the snipers would be used for the smaller ones.