MI5 launches internal probe into Manchester attack
MANCHESTER: Britain’s MI5 intelligence service has launched an internal probe into whether vital clues were missed ahead of the Manchester attack, as the city marked on Monday a week since the carnage that claimed 22 lives.
Manchester City Council called a vigil in the centre of the northwest English city at 2131 GMT — the exact moment that 22-year-old Salman Abedi detonated his bomb outside a pop concert by teen idol Ariana Grande in one of Europe’s biggest indoor arenas.
The names of the victims, including six children, were read out in front of the city’s town hall earlier on Monday in front of hundreds of people at an annual religious ceremony.
A nearby square that has been the focus of remembrance was packed with floral tributes and heart-shaped balloons, as well as runners’ bibs left by participants in a half-marathon on Sunday.
“You tried to destroy us but you’ve brought us closer together,” read one message of defiance.
Authorities arrested a 23-year-old man in the southern coastal town of Shoreham-bySea, more than 400 kilometres from Manchester.
That brings the total number of people now detained on UK soil to 14, all of them men, while Abedi’s father and brother have been held in Libya, where officials said the two brothers were IS fighters.
MI5 are also looking at decisions taken in the case of Abedi, who used to be on a terror watchlist but was no longer on it at the time of the attack, and whether warnings about his behaviour were ignored amid mounting criticism of the security services.