North Sea counter-terror attack plan revealed

CONCERNS over a terrorist attack on a North Sea platform led the UK Government to organise a full scale rehearsal of taking back an oil rig with special forces called “Operation Smoked Salmon” newly released government papers have revealed.

The UK Government organised a full scale rehearsal of taking back an oil rig with special forces called Operation Smoked Salmon. Picture: Hemedia

The papers from 1979 released today under the 25 year rule by the National Archive reveal that there was also a memorandum on joint security with the Norwegians.

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The papers should that Mrs Thatcher decided not to attend Operation Smoked Salmon although she was present for another test run at an atomic power station called Exercise Martock.

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In a minute on 3 December 1979 to the Prime Minister, Smoked Salmon was described as “a series of command and control exercises designed to test counter terrorist contingency arrangements for use in any incident involving offshore oil and gas installations”.

In another letter dated 23 February 1983 from the Foreign Office to Downing Street, it noted that talks on security cooperation with Norway began at the end of 1978.

It noted that “the Norwegian Government have been particularly anxious to improve cooperation.”

The two governments were studying “legal and political aspects of cooperation, particularly cooperation involving the use of armed forces or police of one country within the jurisdiction of the other.”

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