Troops on the streets as threat level increases
BRITAIN: British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday raised the nation’s threat level and deployed the military to guard concerts, sports matches and other public events, saying another terror attack ‘‘may be imminent’’ following a bombing on Tuesday that left 22 people dead.
The announcement, which took Britain’s alert level from ‘‘severe’’ to its highest rating, ‘‘critical’’, cleared the way for thousands of British troops to take to the streets and replace police officers in guarding key sites.
May announced the move after chairing an emergency meeting of her security cabinet and concluding that the Manchester attacker may have been part of a wider network poised to strike again. The decision, she said, was ‘‘a proportionate and sensible response to the threat that our security experts judge we face’’.
The worst terror attack on British soil in over a decade was carried out by a 22-year-old British citizen who lived a short drive from the concert hall that he transformed from a scene of youthful merriment into a tableau of horror.
But whether Salman Abedi acted alone or with accomplices remains a question that British investigators are urgently trying to answer.
The prospect of a wider plot, May said, was ‘‘a possibility we cannot ignore’’.
The killing of 22 people - many of them teenagers - following a concert by American pop star Ariana Grande was claimed yesterday by Islamic State, which said one of its ‘‘soldiers’’ was responsible. Officials and experts cast doubt on the terror group’s assertion, however.
Authorities are scrambling to execute searches, arrest potential accomplices and reinforce security systems at a range of public events that look newly vulnerable to similar attacks.
The highest priority for police, said Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, was to ‘‘establish whether [Abedi] was acting alone or as part of a network’’.
Unlike previous high-profile attacks - including one in March in which an assailant driving a speeding car ran down pedestrians on a London bridge, then stabbed to death a British police officer - experts said it was unlikely that Tuesday’s attack had been carried out without help.
‘‘Getting a car or a knife is easy,’’ said Raffaello Pantucci, a terrorism expert at the Londonbased Royal United Services Institute. ‘‘Making a bomb that works and goes off when you want it to go off takes preparation and practice. And it usually involves other people.’’
There was ample evidence of a widening security operation yesterday, with the arrest of a 23-yearold from south Manchester in connection with the bombing. Police also carried out searches at two homes, including a house in the leafy suburban neighbourhood where Abedi was registered as having lived.
A senior European intelligence official said Abedi was a British citizen of Libyan descent, and his brother had been taken into custody.
A family friend said Abedi travelled frequently between Libya and Britain. ‘‘We have an Isis problem in Libya. We wonder whether he met people there who trained him,’’ said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Even before May’s announcement of a ‘‘critical’’ threat level for just the third time ever - the first two came in 2006 and 2007 - authorities from London to Scotland said they would be reviewing security plans for upcoming public events. Even smaller gatherings that would not have been policed in the past might now get protection, they said.
May said the military would operate under police command.
The escalation came as the nation grieved for the young victims, with thousands of people converging on Manchester’s graceful Albert Square for a vigil that was part solemn remembrance and part rally against extremism.
To roaring applause, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham vowed that the city - which has seen hardship, having been bombed relentlessly during World War II - would not succumb to division or anger. Poet Tony Walsh delivered an ode to the city titled This Is the Place. And, in what has become a dark mainstay of life in Western Europe, passersby left candles, flowers and cards for the dead.
The casualties included children as young as primary school pupils. Police said that among the 59 people injured, a dozen were younger than 16.
Among the dead was Saffie Rose Roussos, who was just 8 years old. The first victim to be publicly identified was Georgina Callander, an 18-year-old student.
Other names were expected to be released, with authorities bracing the public for deaths among the teens and tweens who form the core of Grande’s enthusiastic fan base.
In a speech outside No 10 Downing Street, where flags were lowered to half-staff, May called the Manchester killings a ‘‘callous terrorist attack’’.
She later visited Manchester, meeting with local authorities and signing a condolence book honouring the victims.
The Queen led guests at a garden party at Buckingham Palace in a moment of silence and issued a statement expressing her ‘‘deepest sympathies’’. - Washington Post
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