Justice Min. to better organize equipping Netherlands police tactical units

Minister Ard van der Steur of Security and Justice is improving the organization of equipping and arming the police's counterterrorism unit and other specialist police teams. Where possible, he wants to accelerate the ordering and delivery of equipment to the Special Intervention Service, he wrote in a letter to the Tweede Kamer.

This follows complaints from the Special Intervention Service, the counterterrorism unit of the police, about a shortage of specialized equipment and a too-high work load.

"The concerns of the employees of the Service, I take, like the corps chief, very seriously", Van der Steur wrote to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, according to NOS. "The corps chief will see to it that everything possible is done to facilitate the Service as much as possible so that the remain able to respond adequately and quickly in the short and long term to all forms of serious violence or terrorism on the whole spectrum."