UK intel agency erred in tracking Manchester bomber

LONDON : British internal intelligence agency MI5 has admitted for the first time it made a mistake in failing to track Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who targeted a concert by Ariana Grande at Manchester Arena last year.

The attack on May 22, 2017, killed 22 people and injured hundreds. MI5’s admission is included in a highly critical report of parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, titled ‘The 2017 Attacks: What Needs to Change?’.

The report criticises the government for failing to learn lessons from previous terror attacks.“MI5 decided not to place travel monitoring or travel restrictions on Salman Abedi which allowed him to return undetected to the UK in the days immediately before he carried out his attack,” it said.

“MI5 have since admitted that given the information they had on Abedi, they should have done so, and they have now revisited their policies in this respect. The case also highlights deficiencies in MI5’s system for monitoring individuals of interest not currently under active investigation.” It noted that Abedi was flagged for review, but MI5’s systems “moved too slowly” and the review did not happen prior to him launching the attack. It had also not taken any follow-up action after he visited an extremist contact in prison.

“There were a number of failures in the handling of Salman Abedi’s case and while it is impossible to say whether these would have prevented the devastating attack...we have concluded that, as a result of the failings, potential opportunities to prevent it were missed”, the report said.