Still on edge
LONDON Britain’s top counterterrorism official has said authorities believe they have rounded up most of the network suspected of involvement in this week’s terrorist bombing in Manchester, but the country remains braced for further violence during of a sunny long weekend packed with road races, football matches and other ripe targets.
The announcement eased worries from earlier in the week that the sophistication of the suicide blast that killed 22 people meant that a bomb maker could still be on the loose, with further attacks planned. But authorities still cautioned vigilance, and more than 1000 soldiers remained deployed across Britain.
‘‘We’re very happy we’ve got our hands around some of the key players that we’re concerned about,’’ said Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the head of National Counterterrorism Policing at the Metropolitan Police.
He said investigators were trying to unravel 22-year-old bomber Salman Abedi’s life and also to reconstruct his final days and hours.
Top officials said they had no specific knowledge of threats during the long weekend. Monday is a bank holiday in Britain.
Authorities said they were keeping an eye on more than 1300 public events over the weekend, including a series of sporting events across Manchester.
There were signs of the strain on Britain’s diverse society, as Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said reports of hate crimes in the city after the attack had doubled.
Police raided an apartment building in Manchester’s city centre where Abedi is thought to have rented a flat in the week ahead of the attack, and where bomb-making materials were found.
British media reported that enough nuts, bolts and chemicals were discovered there to construct another bomb.
Two men aged 20 and 22 were arrested on suspicion of terror offences yesterday after police carried out a controlled explosion to gain entry to a property during a raid in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, bringing the number of suspects being held in custody to 11.
The raids came as top United States and British officials tried to patch a significant rift that had opened between normally close intelligence agencies. Leaks about the Manchester attack, apparently from US authorities, prompted an unusual public rebuke from British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Visiting London yesterday to offer condolences after the attack, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the close relationship between US and British intelligence agencies would survive the strain of the disclosures.
‘‘We take full responsibility for that, and we obviously regret that that happened,’’ Tillerson said after a lunch meeting with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
The newly elected mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, says police cuts have made Manchester more vulnerable to GETTY IMAGES terrorists, and has called for an overhaul of the government’s ‘‘toxic’’ counterterrorism strategy.
Burnham said police visibility in the area had dipped noticeably after the force’s budget was slashed by 20 per cent since 2010. He said the city had lost 2000 officers, and demanded the reinstatement of at least half.
Burnham, a former Labour cabinet minister, also emphasised that the Muslim community should not be made a scapegoat after the attack.
He raised concerns that the government was fuelling REUTERS divisions with its Prevent programme for tackling extremism, which requires public sector workers to report suspicious behaviour.
‘‘Like with Northern Ireland, the premise of it is that you’ve got to treat everyone with suspicion. I understand why some young people would bristle against that,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, May yesterday accused Labour rival Jeremy Corbyn of saying that Britain had brought terrorism upon itself, in an unusually personal attack that thrust the Manchester bombing into the centre of the general election campaign less than two weeks before the vote.
The mud-slinging marked May’s return to electioneering after a series of opinion polls showed her once-dominant lead evaporating.
Corbyn made a speech yesterday arguing that Britain’s decision to join foreign wars had made the country a target for terrorists.
‘‘Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home,’’ he said. Washington Post, The Times, Bloomberg