Hanoi held a national-scale exercise to fight terror attacks, free hostages, clear mines and rescue victims on waterways along the Red River on November 10.

It was attended by Minister of Public Security Le Hong Anh, Minister of National Defence Phung Quang Thanh and Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Huynh Ngoc Son as well as representatives of security forces and anti-terrorism squads from China , Laos , Cambodia , Singapore and Malaysia .

Over 1,000 officers and police of the flying squads participated in the event alongside police from the other forces such as guards, waterway traffic police and fire fighters as well as air-defence force, and sappers.

The joint exercise put the spotlight on two suspicious motor boats, which fled after receiving stop signals from waterway traffic police. They even “opened fire” on police pursuers, forcing traffic police to shoot into the air.

Spotting more police ahead several men on the motor boats jumped on a cruise ship and took crew and tourists aboard hostage. They claimed themselves to be members of a terrorist group named VT and demanded police release detained members of the VT group, hand over 1 million USD and supply a helicopter for them to fly to a foreign country.

They threatened to “kill” all the hostages and “explode” the ship if their demand was not met.

Divers equipped with special kits approached the ship from the side and behind, and helicopters were mobilised to jam information waves in order to isolate the “terrorists”, and launch a surprise attack, seizing the kidnappers and successfully freeing all hostages.

The exercise, jointly held by the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of National Defence and Hanoi authorities, aimed to help anti-terror squads to discover limitations and problems possibly emerging from the fight against terror attacks./.