U.S. To Stage Biggest Anti-Terrorism Exercise On Guam

The world's biggest anti-terrorism exercise will be held this year on Guam, underscoring the Pacific island's growing importance to Washington, officials recently said. Exercise TopOff4 is part of a series of large-scale maneuvers established to strengthen the U.S. ability to respond to terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. William Marhoffer, the U.S. Coast Guard commander in Guam, said the TopOff4 exercise would be bigger than last year's Valiant Shield war games, in which the United States mobilized 30 ships, 280 aircraft and 22,000 military personnel. "It will be bigger in some ways. Valiant Shield was a military exercise. It was a show of force. It was the first time we had three carrier strike groups in combined operations in the Pacific since the Vietnam War," he said. TopOff4 "is a domestic counterterrorism exercise. It involves the intelligence communities, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Coast Guard." The exercise is expected to simulate a maritime terrorist attack.