Two weeks before the 30^th Olympiad is scheduled to begin in London, and two weeks after Wimbledon, four weeks after the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and amidst scheduled rotations of British armed forces personnel to Afghanistan, an additional 3,500 have been added to the overall security forces for the Olympics. This brings the total to 17,000 who will now be on duty for the duration of the Olympics.

In a Written Ministerial Statement, Philip Hammond the Secretary of Defence, said, “that as the venue security exercise has got under way, concerns have arisen about the ability of commercial security provider G4S to deliver the required number of guards for all the venues within the timescales available. Ministers have been monitoring the situation and, where necessary preparing contingency measures. G4S has now agreed that it would be prudent to deploy additional military support to provide great reassurance.” There will now be more British service personnel deployed for Olympics security than are currently deployed in Afghanistan.