Taipei Times
Date: Mar 22, 2017
By: Lee Jung-ping and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Opening its Counterterrorism Center in Taoyuan’s Sinwu District (新屋) yesterday, the
Members of the Wei-An Police Special Services Commando conduct a hostage rescue drill at yesterday’s opening ceremony for the National Police Administration’s Counterterrorism Center in Taoyuan’s Sinwu District. Photo: CNA
National Police Administration (NPA) said the center would usher in a new age of counterterrorism efforts in the nation.
At the ceremony, presided over by Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮), center employees conducted their first drill, which simulated a terrorist attack on the Taipei Universiade athletes’ village.
The simulation included bomb attacks, random shooting and hostage-taking, arrival of a counterterrorist taskforce via helicopter and exchange of fire with the “terrorists” and the successful extraction of the hostages, the agency said.
The Ministry of the Interior in 2003 authorized construction of the center, but revisions of the plan and difficulty in finding contractors delayed the start of construction until 2015. The center was finally completed last year. [FULL STORY]
