Nairobi Attack - Are We Prepared?

Following the attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, surely we should be asking whether it could happen in Britain.
The Mail today reports that:

Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, a hate preacher wanted for recruiting killers warned that terrorists are planning to murder innocent Britons saying: 'You will all die'. The man, known as Makaburi by his followers which means graveyard said Britain will be targeted by terrorists to impose Sharia law across the world. 

The report also adds that:

He is accused of being part of a network that directed up to 100 British terrorists to East African training camps.

We need to take such warnings seriously as we can no longer rely on the fact that we are an island to protect us from harm. With our lax border controls, and the influx of Somalis into this country, who knows whether one of his lieutenants might even now be here organising such an attack.

Frankly, I am not impressed by our government's response:

The Prime Minister, who chaired meetings of the Cobra crisis committee last week, said he had no intelligence of plans for an ‘imminent’ attack in Britain.
But asked whether he was concerned that British-based Somalis might export terror to the UK, Mr Cameron said: ‘There is always a worry of  that and there is a hotbed of terrorism in Somalia that spills over into  other countries.’

I repeat, this does not impress me in the slightest. Surely the fact that up to 100 "British" terrorists are believed to have attended training camps is a matter of great concern, not just "a worry".  The government should be putting plans together as to how they would deal with such an attack in one of our numerous shopping malls. 

I tried to imagine what would happen if we had such an attack in our local, rather small, shopping centre. I simply cannot imagine our local (Thames Valley) police force would have the resources or any idea how to deal with it, and I expect the same applies to most other forces. Look at how long it took the Met (probably our best resourced police force) to get an armed police response to the shooting of Gunner Lee Rigby. I don't blame the police forces for this situation, but the government who is fond of holding "Cobra" meetings and talking, but doing little else.

Surely it is time that the country had elite armed police/military squads ready at all times to deal with such a crisis, along with resources such as helicopters to move them at a moments notice. Squads which have trained in shopping malls and have all the latest technology at their disposal along with such things as plans and other details of all the major shopping areas for instant reference.

There is also the question of how the ethnic British would view such an attack. Generally we are very tolerant but the day will come when we will say that "enough is enough", and there could be riots directed towards Muslims living in this country.

We may not be able to stop such an attack, but we need to be prepared and our police forces need the necessary backing to be able to handle such a crisis. The British people need to be convinced that their government has real plans and resources for dealing with such a situation and any consequent repercussions. That is far more important than  any number of "Cobra" meetings.

That Gas Plant in Algeria

Since the attack on the gas plant in Algeria and the taking of some British hostages, Downing Street seems to have gone into a state of panic.
We have had two meetings today of COBRA, the emergency committee, Cameron has postponed his speech on the EU and Hague is cutting his visit to Australia short and flying back.
All for what?
There is absolutely nothing they can do about the situation. If there was a hostage situation in this country involving foreign nationals, I'm sure that those charged with resolving the situation wouldn't be happy to receive continuous "advice" from foreign governments.
As it is, I'm inclined to believe that the Algerians know best how to deal with the matter; they probably have a far greater understanding of the thinking and likely actions of the terrorists than any "expert" in this country. Regrettably perhaps, they don't place such a high value on life as we do, but on the other hand neither do the terrorists who have no fear of being killed as their religion teaches them that they will go to paradise. It is unlikely that negotiations with them would even reach first base, let alone a satisfactory conclusion.
We don't know why the Algerians launched an all out attack, no doubt we will discover in due course, but with reports of explosions from the site, they could have been concerned that the whole plant would be destroyed along with the hostages. The Algerians were best placed to understand the minds of those involved and probably acted accordingly.

Meanwhile what should COBRA do? Well, a large percentage of our natural gas is imported from Algeria. This is the real crisis, this attack could lead to the loss of our supplies and make us even more heavily dependent on Russian gas. The real emergency is our gas supplies, in the absence of which, this country could grind to a halt in weeks if not days. They should get together all those involved in fracking and clear the way for a massive effort to start getting our own gas out of the ground in the shortest possible time. That is the real emergency, the possible loss of gas supplies, not the hostages about which, regrettably, we can do absolutely nothing.