Five key questions: How the London police plan to protect the royal wedding

What are the security concerns?

The biggest concern seems to be what London police call “fixated individuals” – mentally ill people with a fixation on a particular person or group. About 40 percent of Britain’s “most persistent” stalkers are fixated on the royal family, according to Time. There is an entire team of psychologists (called the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre) that works to identify which of them pose a real threat. Police are worried that people obsessed with a member of the royal family or Middleton will attempt to disrupt the wedding.

On top of that, a Muslim cleric living in the UK said earlier this week that the royal wedding would be a prime target for Al Qaeda franchises. And as always, the threat of dissident Irish Republican groups lurks in the background. British intelligence recently shifted some of its resources from tracking Al Qaeda factions to tracking IRA splinter groups because of growing concerns about attacks coming from Ireland, according to Time.

Rain is another problem. While most people want a sunny day for the big event, the police dread the rain because rain gear would make it significantly easier for people to conceal weapons or other dangerous objects, according to Roy Ramm, the former commander of specialist operations at New Scotland Yard, in an interview with CNN.

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