80 Soldiers from the 5th Battalion The RIFLES joined forces with four police organisations: Thames Valley Police, Hampshire Constabulary, Ministry of Defence Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary to hunt down three fugitive terrorists in the village of Longmoor; in reality, a purpose-built urban training facility at the MOD’s Longmoor Camp.
This was Exercise Octacine, the first significant national counter-terrorism exercise bringing together the police and military since the pandemic struck almost two years ago.
The exercise was based around a major terrorist incident that had been declared following atrocities in which a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device had been detonated at Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction causing carnage and mass casualties. 15 minutes later a car drove into a group of commuters outside the city’s New Street Station. An Army bomb disposal team confirmed that the explosion on the motorway junction was caused by a bomb and so the hunt was on for the accomplices to these attacks.
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Source: British Army
