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Manchester explosion: 'Suicide bomber suspected' after 19 people die at Ariana Grande concert

 

 

Police said they believe a suicide bomber may have been responsible for the deadly incident in Manchester that left at least 19 people, according to US officials reportedly briefed on what happened.

More than 50 people were also injured in the incident that took place at the conclusion of a concert by US singer, Ariana Grande, and which police said they were treating it as a suspected terrorist attack. Police carried out a controlled explosion on a suspect device several hours after the blast but subsequently revealed it had been a harmless bag.

Prime Minister Theresa May paid tribute to the victims and families of those involved in “what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attackâ€.

 

If confirmed as a terrorism incident, it would be the deadliest attack in Britain by militants since four young British Muslims killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London's transport system in July 2005. Reuters said US officials had been told police in Manchester suspected a suicide bomber carried out the attack.

Police said they responded to reports of an explosion shortly after 10.35pm at the arena, which has a capacity for 21,000 people, and where the US singer had been performing to an audience that included many children.

A witness who attended the concert said she felt a huge blast as she was leaving the arena, followed by screaming and a rush by thousands of people trying to escape the building. A video posted on Twitter showed fans, many of them young, running from the venue.

 

“We were making our way out and when we were right by the door there was a massive explosion and everybody was screaming,†concert-goer Catherine Macfarlane told Reuters.

“It was a huge explosion - you could feel it in your chest. It was chaotic. Everybody was running and screaming and just trying to get out.â€

A spokesman for Ariana Grande, 23, said the singer was “okayâ€.

Manchester Arena, the largest indoor arena in Europe, opened in 1995 and is a popular concert and sporting venue.

Britain is on its second-highest alert level of “severe†meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.

 

The Independent

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Blackeye

I suspect either the Amish acting out again, or maybe those Scandinavians. Both a shady bunch.

 

Aloha snackbar. 

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Salman Abedi 'wanted revenge' for US air strikes in Syria, Manchester bomber's sister says

 

 

The sister of Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi believes her brother carried out the attack because he wanted revenge for US air strikes on Syria.

Jomana Abedi said in an interview her brother was kind and loving and that she was surprised by what he did on Monday.

At least 22 people were killed and dozens seriously injured when 22-year-old Abedi detonated a device as fans left an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.

Ms Abedi said she thought he was driven by America's military attacks in the Middle East.

“I think he saw children - Muslim children - dying everywhere, and wanted revenge," she told the Wall Street Journal .

 

 "He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge. Whether he got that is between him and God.â€

In the most recent high-profile attack in Syria last month,  the US military fired 59 Tomahawk missiles from the USS Porter and USS Ross warships in the Mediterranean Sea at the al-Shayran air base near the western city of Homs, which the Pentagon said was used to store chemical weapons.

Six Syrian soldiers were reported to have been killed in the missile strike, which destroyed as much as 90 per cent of the base. Syrian officials said nine civilians, including four children, were also killed.

Ms Abedi's attempt to justify the attack was branded "abhorrent". 

"There is no justification for the taking of a child's lives," Mark Session, 52, from Manchester, was quoted as saying by the Mirror .

"Any kid losing their life is heartbreaking, but to my knowledge, no children in the allied air strikes has been targeted purposely unlike in Manchester."

"It is sick to justify the arena bombing in such a way. It is abhorrent in fact.

"There is no place for her comments."

Victims of the Manchester suicide bomb attack named, in pictures

Abedi's family has come under much scrutiny in the wake of the attacks. 

His father, Ramadan, was arrested in Tripoli and was allegedly a member of the al-Qaeda-backed Libyan Islamic Fighting group in the 1990s, according to a former Libyan security official, Abdel-Basit Haroun. The elder Abedi denied he was part of the militant group.

Abedi's younger brother Hashim was also arrested in Tripoli and allegedly knew his brother was planning an attack in Manchester. 

A 23-year-old man - named in reports as Abedi's older brother Ismail - was detained in Chorlton, south Manchester, on Tuesday.

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Theresa May to tackle Donald Trump over Manchester bombing evidence

 

 

Theresa May will confront Donald Trump over the stream of leaks of crucial intelligence about the Manchester bomb attack when she meets the US president at a Nato summit in Brussels on Thursday.

British officials were infuriated on Wednesday when the New York Times published forensic photographs of sophisticated bomb parts that UK authorities fear could complicate the expanding investigation into the lethal blast in which five further arrests have been made in the UK and two more in Libya.

It was the latest of a series of leaks to US journalists that appeared to come from inside the US intelligence community, passing on data that had been shared between the two countries as part of a long-standing security cooperation.

A senior Whitehall source said: “These images from inside the American system are clearly distressing to victims, their families and other members of the public. Protests have been lodged at every relevant level between the British authorities and our US counterparts. They are in no doubt about our huge strength of feeling on this issue. It is unacceptable.â€

Police chiefs also criticised the leaking of information from the investigation. A National Counter Terrorism Policing spokesperson said: “We greatly value the important relationships we have with our trusted intelligence, law enforcement and security partners around the world.

“When that trust is breached it undermines these relationships, and undermines our investigations and the confidence of victims, witnesses and their families. This damage is even greater when it involves unauthorised disclosure of potential evidence in the middle of a major counter-terrorism investigation.â€

The government does not believe the president is directly responsible for the potentially compromising leaks; but May will raise her concerns with him at the Nato summit where she will push for the military alliance to join the coalition against Islamic State.

The images published by the US newspaper revealed that the device that killed 22 people used by Salman Abedi had been made with “forethought and careâ€, raising questions for investigators about how it had been constructed and by whom.

 

Abedi had carried a metal box containing “well packed†explosives metal nuts and screws in a box probably inside a Karrimor rucksack, the leaked details showed. The device was powerful enough for shrapnel to penetrate metal doors and to scar brick walls. Abedi detonated the bomb with his left hand.

It showed the force of the explosion was such that his torso was ripped from the rest of his body and propelled across the foyer and that most of those killed were in a circle around the bomber.

Only hours earlier Amber Rudd, the home secretary, had rebuked the US security services for leaking the bomber’s name to American media before it had been made public in Britain, but her warnings appeared to have had no impact.

“I have been very clear with our friends that that should not happen again,†Rudd had said.

Three people were detained by Greater Manchester police in south Manchester, a fourth arrest was made in Wigan, a fifth in Blackley in the north of the city and a sixth in Nuneaton, Warwickshire while security forces in Tripoli arrested the bomber’s father, Ramadan Abedi, as well as his younger brother, Hashem Abedi. Libyan officials said that Hashem knew about the planned attack.

“It is very clear that this is a network we are investigating,†said Greater Manchester’s chief constable, Ian Hopkins. “It continues at a pace.â€

Further arrests in Britain appear likely as security officials race to roll up the network around Abedi, who claimed the lives of 22 people in a suicide bombing at an Ariane Grande concert on Monday night, with dozens more wounded.

About 1,000 troops were also deployed on British streets to guard public buildings, freeing up armed officers so they could assist with the spreading investigation, the day after Theresa May raised the UK’s terror threat level to critical.

“It seems likely, possible, that he wasn’t doing this on his own,†said Rudd. A critical threat means that a further terror attack is believed to be highly likely and may be imminent.

Ten more victims of the deadly attack were named on Wednesday, bringing to 13 the number of people killed by the suicide bomber so far confirmed as dead by their families.

They include an eight-year-old, teenage girls and a mother of three. A female police officer who was off duty at the concert with her husband and two children was also killed, Cheshire police confirmed. She has not been named. Her husband remained critically ill in hospital and the children were injured.

Another 64 people were still being treated at Manchester hospitals, an increase on Tuesday because some walking wounded had to be admitted. Twenty were receiving critical care including some with damage to major organs.

“These are highly traumatic injuries,†said Jon Rouse, chief executive of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, who said some victims would require “very long term care and support in terms of their recoveryâ€.

At a vigil on Wednesday night in Bury, the mother of 15-year-old Olivia Campbell, sobbed as she addressed the crowd. Supported by relatives, Charlotte Campbell, said she felt she had to come to speak: “Don’t let this beat any of us. Don’t let my Olivia be a victim,†she said.

Police said relatives of all those killed had been informed and specialist officers were supporting them. Some families issued statements describing their loss. Relatives of Michelle Kiss, a mother of three from Lancashire, said she had been taken in the “most traumatic way imaginableâ€.

“We hope to draw from the courage and strength she showed in her life to get through this extremely difficult time,†they said.

Fourteen-year-old Cheshire schoolgirl Nell Jones was also confirmed as among the dead and Jane Tweddle-Taylor, a 51-year-old school receptionist, who was waiting with a friend to pick up two girls from the concert, was also confirmed as a fatality.

Greater Manchester Police declined to comment on claims on Tuesday by a Muslim community worker that they had twice contacted police about Salman Abedi several years ago. The worker, who was not named, told the BBC they raised the alarm because they were worried that Abedi “was supporting terrorism†and had expressed the view that “being a suicide bomber was OKâ€.

A GMP spokesman said: “It is part of an ongoing investigation. We can’t comment on it.â€

Meanwhile both Labour and the Conservatives indicated that campaigning in the general election is set to restart in earnest on Friday with some local campaigning starting on Wednesday, when Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn discussed with the prime minister the issue of when to return to the campaign trail. There will be a nationwide one-minute silence at 11am on Thursday.

Before his arrest Abedi’s father said he had last seen his son when he visited Tripoli last week. He had told his mother he intended to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca during Ramadan, which starts this weekend.

“I was really shocked when I saw the news, I still don’t believe it,†he said. “My son was as religious as any child who opens his eyes in a religious family. As we were discussing news of similar attacks earlier, he was always against those attacks, saying there’s no religious justification for them.â€

Ahmed Bin Salem, a spokesman for the Tripoli-based militia, known as Rada that arrested the bomber’s brother, said it had evidence Hashem Abedi “is involved in Daesh [islamic State] with his brotherâ€.

“We have been following him for more than one month and a half,†he told Reuters. “He was in contact with his brother and he knew about the attack.† 

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