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Lukashenka suggests increasing efficiency of special operations units

Alyaksandr Lukashenka suggested increasing the efficiency of the special operations units of the police and state security agencies, while speaking at a conference held Tuesday at the home station of Group A, an elite counter-terrorist unit belonging to the Committee for State Security (KGB), BelaPAN reports.

“A system has now been devised in Belarus at the legislative level for responding to extremist actions. Increasing its efficiency is an urgent task,” the Belarusian leader said, according to the presidential press office.

“Radical forces often make use of murderous extremist methods both in the global scale and at the regional level as a means of achieving their political aims,” Mr. Lukashenka said. “The recent acts of terrorism in Moscow are evidence of this. We have no right to pay less attention to such threats to the security of people, resting our hopes on the stability of the socio-political situation in Belarus.”

It is especially important to create an efficient mechanism of coordinating the counter-terrorist activities of various agencies and their special operations units, Mr. Lukashenka suggested.

According to him, when the units were established, he found it necessary to have several such units, not one or two powerful units, to ensure “healthy competition.” “But in trying times, all special operations units should act concertedly and toward a common goal,” he stressed.

“The Belarusian special operations units should be able to do everything that is necessary to do in the modern world to properly respond to hostage taking or an act of terrorism,” Mr. Lukashenka said. He pointed out that the government would give serious attention to the special operations units and support them, but at the same time, it would demand much of them.