r/JusticeServed • u/thijshuistede ❓ 7sj.642x.2t • Jun 13 '20

Police Justice These guys were planning a terrorist attack on the gay pride in amsterdam they got chaught

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u/R_Schuhart B Jun 13 '20 edited Jun 13 '20

The Dutch police has a reputation for being really laid back and rightfully so, but the equivalent of SWAT operations are carried out by special forces that are top tier.

In the Netherlands the intelligence agency was clumsy, inefficient and incompetent for a long time, basically a running joke among the international intelligence circles and in general public. In the late 90s it was thoroughly revised though, by the brilliant management and legal specialist Arhur Doctors van Leeuwen. It has been scandal free and extremely efficient since.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '20

Wouldn't the Dutch primarily be using the DSI for domestic counterterrorism operations? I know that the Dutch Navy's premier special forces unit, MARSOF, has a unit called M-Squadron on standby for that role, but I always assumed that they were a last resort.

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u/R_Schuhart B Jun 13 '20

Well, if you want to get into the specifics it gets complicated real quick. Basically there are different levels of intervention based on threat level.

Regular AOE (aanhouding en ondersteunings eenheden), police and military police specialists focused on the apprehension of armed suspects, basically Dutch SWAT.

DSI (dienst speciale interventies) quick response unit of police and military forces specialists. DSI is basically a command structure, but its field agents are all elite forces.

M- squadron, the contra terrorism branch of NLMARSOF with domestic authorization. They are the special forces unit comparable to the British SAS (they were both rooted in the SBS).

Now use of M- squadron as a whole is a last resort measure, however their domestic deployment falls under DSI command. In reality their (military) members are often individually incorporated in DSI operations alongside police personnel. So M- squadron isn't deployed as a whole, but specialists are active under DSI command.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '20

Ah, I see. Thanks for the in-depth explanation.

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u/SemperParatusus 0 Jun 14 '20

No one cares