The Siege of Foldereid

The Siege of Foldereid was a siege operation conducted by several of the Police agencies of Ringerike against a religious sect calling themselves the 'Right Hand of the All-Father (Norsk: All-fars høyre hånd)', followers of an extremist form of Orthodox Godatru. The first police involvement came after the leaking of the identities of several undercover police officers and informants, two of which were embedded in the sect to investigate their possible connection to the theft of several items of medical equipment containing radioactive material. Once their identities were released, the officers were captured and their images circulated in the press, the first officers on scene were ambushed by members of the sect, resulting in two deaths.

Prelude
A spate of robberies at several waste sites were linked to the same group of thieves, who were discovered to have links to the 'Right Hand of the All-Father', which had been on a watch list for some time at this point. This led to the Police Service ordering two undercover officers to infiltrate the group in late February 2017. The officers, who had been operating undercover in similar sects for approximately one year made contact and gained entry to the sect, however by the time their identities were compromised, they had not been able to gather any actionable intelligence about what the radioactive materiel was being used for, and it was assumed it was intended to be sold to fund the groups other activities. Their identities were compromised when on the 3rd of May, an anonymous hacking group released a series of classified documents containing details of ongoing undercover police operations, most of the compromised officers made their escapes, however the two embedded in the 'Right Hand of the All-Father' were captured and held hostage, prompting the first Police response.

The Siege
The Siege began in earnest after the first failed attempt to force entry, with the police establishing a cordon around the area and evacuating those considered to be within the firing line, from the outset it was decided that the operation would be entirely managed by the police, as the RNPS was in desperate need of an opportunity to prove its capabilities, whereas such a situation would once have required the intervention of military special forces.

Contact with the Sect was made relatively quickly after one of their members made their way out onto the street with a list of demands, ranging from safe passage out of the country to the live televised execution of the King, it is now believed that these were mostly an attempt to buy time to work on the Dirty Bomb within the building, which was first revealed on the eighth day of the siege, when another member of the sect, apparently in a fit of rage with the negotiator, revealed its existence. The radiological nature of the device was confirmed by measurements taken by the police CBRN specialist cell which had been called in immediately upon the mention of such a device.

The authorities still held on to the possibility of a peaceful conclusion to the siege, however preparations were made for an immediate assault upon either the death of a hostage, or the perceived risk of detonation becoming too great. Negotiations continued until 0545 on the 8th of June when an unknown member of the sect, seemingly angered by the lack of progress being made, shot both hostages in the stomach with a handgun and shoved them out of the front door. It was determined that the only course of action the sect would take next would be detonating the device, prompting the raid team to take action.

The Raid
At exactly 0546, only around 45 seconds after the hostages were pushed out of the front door, the RNPS teams made entry by way of breaching charges applied to doors and walls around the building, following these up with CS rounds and stun grenades, several gunshots were heard, followed by the first explosion, which is thought to have been an improvised explosive booby trap, killing 2 RNPS officers instantly. Within five seconds it was followed up by a second, much larger explosion which completely leveled the south side of the building. Radiological detectors measured a massive spike in contamination and it was determined that this was the detonation of the dirty bomb, after the operation, a review of the helmet camera footage shows the bomb being detonated following a failed attempt to arrest, rather than shoot the leader of the sect as they had failed to identify the mobile phone in his hand as a detonator. This has sparked a major debate surrounding police tactics and why they retained primacy even after the confirmation of the bomb's presence.

Aftermath
The aftermath of the raid is dominated by the debate surrounding the reasons for allowing the RNPS to plan and lead the assault with a unit that had never proven itself in such a situation. Another large lingering result is that the village of Folderied is now considered completely uninhabitable and a cleanup program is currently underway, but is not expected to be completed for at least a decade. The debate over the operation led to the ousting of the then Prime Minister Aududn Lysbakken, and the decision that all future situations involving CBRN threats were the exclusive domain of the military, particularly the HSK, the special forces unit of the Ringerike Army. The former inhabitants of Foldereid have been financially compensated and provided housing elsewhere in the country.