Dirty War (film)

Percival was tasked with creating the film by BBC executives, whose outline for the project was "think about what the new generation of terrorism actually meant". Percival stated that "The challenge of Dirty War was to tell the story of the attack from the intimate perspective of several different characters. We want to get the messages of this film to the widest possible audience."

Mickery was asked if she would like to co-write the script. She said of her contribution; "I think drama has the capacity to touch more people. If you are caught up in the emotions of the characters involved - and not just the statistics - the effect it has on you will last longer and be more intimate. Dirty War's aim is to try to make sense of the situation we all face, to ask questions on our behalf, and most importantly, to move us."[3]

Dirty War opens with a quote from Eliza Manningham-Buller, the then-Director General of MI5: "It will only be a matter of time before a crude chemical, biological, or radiological (CBRN) attack is launched on a major Western city". Dirty War follows the journey of radioactive material, hidden in vegetable oil containers, from Habiller, Turkey, approximately 210 kilometres (130 mi) west of Istanbul, through Sofia, Bulgaria, onwards to Deptford, then to an East End Indian food takeaway restaurant, and finally to a rented house in Willesden, where the radioactive material and other components are assembled into a dirty bomb. When the bomb goes off in the heart of London, next to the entrance to Liverpool Street Underground station, the city's inadequate emergency services plans are put to an immediate test, with disturbing results for a population ill-prepared to understand or obey anti-contamination and quarantine orders.

In addition to touching upon the motivations of the Islamic extremist terrorists to conduct what they saw as a martyrdom operation, the events are shown through the eyes of three principal groups: the government, the emergency medical services, and the police. Nicola Painswick (Helen Schlesinger), Minister for London, and Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Ives (Ewan Stewart) of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch, present a governmental point of view. Watch Commander Murray Corrigan (Alastair Galbraith) of the London Fire Brigade and his wife Liz Corrigan (Louise Delamere), who works for the National Health Service, present the emergency services' story. Detective Sergeant Mike Drummer (Martin Savage) and Detective Constable Sameena Habibullah (Koel Purie) lead the police investigation to catch the terrorists, under the watchful eye of their boss, Commander Paul Hardwick (Paul Antony-Barber). DC Habibullah, an English Muslim policewoman from Luton, who speaks Urdu, Punjabi, and Arabic, presents a unique point of view throughout the film.

• Louise Delamere as Liz Corrigan
• Alastair Galbraith as Murray Corrigan
• William El-Gardi as Abu Abassi
• Martin Savage as DS Mike Drummer
• Koel Purie as DC Sameena Habibullah
• Helen Schlesinger as Nicola Painswick
• Ewan Stewart as DAC John Ives
• Paul Antony-Barber as Commander Paul Hardwick
• Louise Breckon-Richards as DC Vicky Loman
• Kameal Nisha Bisnauthsingh as Razla
• Shamshad Akhtar as Falzah
• Fuman Dar as Mohammed Ibn Harrara
• Houda Echouafni as Fatima
• George Georgiou as Usman Selcuk
• Dorian Healy as Harper
• David Horovitch as Lambert
• Amar Hussain as Imran Nazir
• Raza Jaffrey as Rashid Dhar
• Hosh Kane as Yousef Ghamidi
• Narinder Samra as Barber Asharf
• Jonty Stephens as DI Justin Lane
• Joe Tucker as DI Lance Brook
• Graeme Ford as DC Chris Scott
• Paul Maddaford as DC Richard Phillips

• Dirty War at IMDb
• Dirty War at AllMovie