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Londoners were today told to “run away as far as possible” if Islamic State terrorists hit the capital as Britain’s most senior counter-terror officer made an unprecedented appeal to the public to prepare for an attack.

Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said people should also hide once they were unable to flee any further and call the police.

He said that by learning the “basic” rules people could save their own lives and help to reduce the death toll if IS terrorists began a mass casualty attack.

“It may seem blindingly obvious, but some people don’t run, they will duck down where they are, do all sorts of different things in the panic,” Mr Rowley told the Standard.

“So let’s be really clear – run as far away as possible and when you can’t run any further, hide, and then tell – call the police because we’ve got the people, the resources, the firearms to deal with it. It’s very straightforward.”

Mr Rowley also called on workers across London “from Canary Wharf to local high streets” to help police foil terror plots by looking out for “suspicious” individuals who might be carrying out reconnaissance in a shopping centre or buying a vehicle to use as a weapon.

It may seem blindingly obvious, but some people don’t run, they will duck down where they are, do all sorts of different things in the panic Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley

His appeal to the public to prepare for terrorists to hit London follows the recent spate of attacks in France and Germany and a warning from Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe that it is a matter of “when, not if” an IS outrage is carried out in Britain.

Mr Rowley, the police national head of counter-terrorism, said that officers were currently carrying out “hundreds of investigations” into terror suspects and facing a “steady flow” of plots by stay-at-home jihadis inspired online.

He said that more armed officers were already being deployed across London in response and that the number of “high calibre” firearms specialists would rise further over the coming weeks.

But he insisted that no individual attack was inevitable and that public vigilance could be crucial in foiling plots.

Appealing for the public to follow police advice on how to cope with the terrorist threat, Mr Rowley added: “Every Londoner can help the fight against terrorism, whether it’s being more prepared personally or at work or if you are suspicious about something or someone – if you see someone acting suspiciously near where you work then straight away contacting us, whether you are working in Canary Wharf or the local high street.

“That person who’s suspicious may be someone doing reconnaissance because they want to attack a shopping centre or it may be someone who is preparing in a different way, hiring a car or a lorry, it could be all sorts of ways, but we say to the public, trust your instincts and pick up the phone to us.

“We the police aren’t being defeatist, we are arresting more and more people, we are bringing more firearms officers on patrol, we’re putting more on foot patrol in crowded places, doing everything we can to flex our resources to protect the public and what we are saying is we aren’t being defeatist, it’s important the public aren’t defeatist as well.

“We need more help, more preparedness from the public. We are asking the public to roll the sleeves up and help us.”

On the advice to “run, hide, tell”, which is set out in full in a “Stay Safe” online film published by police, Mr Rowley added:

“We should all do everything possible to stop attacks happening, but when we look at the events of the past few months in Europe it would be foolish if we were not to put out advice saying if you get caught in something here are some simple rules about what to do and give yourself a better chance of survival.

"This is based on what’s happened in attacks across the world. If you get a chance, run to get away, hide and call us.

“I know the case of somebody who had seen the video who was a British citizen who was caught up in the attack in Tunisia in Sousse and she would say that it changed what she did and saved her life.

"She went to her bedroom on the fifth floor, buried herself in that and locked the door. It’s basics but it’s really important.”

Funding for an extra 600 firearms officers was announced by the government last year following the Paris attacks. Mr Rowley said they were still being trained, but that by working overtime and “other methods” police were putting more armed patrols on the streets.

“The critical point is that this 24/7, specialist officers with the weaponry and equipment to confront a terrorist. This is high calibre, highly trained specialist people.

“They are on patrol in vehicles across London, sometimes they will be on foot, and based on intelligence, based on disrupting terrorism, they will vary between shopping centres, places like Oxford Street, sometimes sporting events, religious premises.

"We will have a much bigger, stronger capability to deal with anything that hits us in London.”

On the scale of the threat, Mr Rowley added: “What we see reflects what’s going on across Europe.

"Most of them aren’t people who have travelled to Syria, but they are being inspired, trying to pick up weapons, to plan an attack here. That’s what we’ve been wrestling with most of all. We’ve had a steady flow of people thinking about that sort of attack.

“The second thing that we’ve got to guard against is … people returning from Syria more determined, more deadly, more highly skilled in weaponry. If those people were to reach the UK that would be a major concern.

“We have got hundreds of investigations ranging from extremists right on the periphery through to small numbers of the highest risk operations of people who are looking to do an attack.

“We’ve got large numbers of people we have got degrees of concern about, we’ve got high risk individuals, the highest-risk operations, and that’s one of the reasons that public information helps us.

"We are constantly trying to sift who are the highest risk individuals on our radar, and a member of the public might spot something about someone we think is low priority that we haven’t.”

Mr Rowley also confirmed that counter terror officers are helping Norfolk Police investigate the attempted kidnap of an airman outside RAF Marham earlier this month, but that the motive for the crime was still unclear.

The “Stay Safe” video on what to do in a terror attack can be viewed here