ARENA BOMB COULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED
MI5 missed chances to act Ariana rap for Morgan
SECURITY services missed key opportunities to stop the Manchester bombing.
They failed to detect terrorist Salman Abedi’s growing support for Islamist extremism, say MPs.
Intelligence and Security Committee chairman Dominic Grieve said: “What we can say is that 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.”
Abedi, 22, first came to the attention of MI5 in December 2010 and was briefly investigated by the agency in 2014.
But MPs said Abedi had travelled to Libya to visit family and questioned the decision not to use travel monitoring and restriction against him.
He also visited jailed extremist Abdal Raouf Abdallah at Liverpool’s HMP Altcourse twice in the months before his attack. All visits and phone calls linked to Abdallah have to be approved by agencies including local counter-terror units.
They are also likely to have faced heavy scrutiny, with staff allowed to listen to inmates’ calls.
Relatives of victims of the atrocity at the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena in 2017 last night reacted with fury to the report.
Dan Hett from Survivors Against Terror – who lost his brother Martyn, 29, in the attack – said the “litany of mistakes in 2017 must urgently be learnt from”.
Martin Hibbert, 41, who was paralysed by the explosion, said: “It’s a start.
“It’s just sad that it has taken 18 months.”
Security chiefs say they are operating at an unprecedented pace to head off terror threats.
POP star Ariana Grande blasted Piers Morgan after he mocked a picture of Little Mix in the nude and accused them of using sex to sell records.
Morgan, who tweeted the pose below, said: “Why don’t we stop pretending that getting your kit off is feminist empowerment?”
But Ariana said: “I use my talent AND my sexuality all the time because I choose to.
“Women can be sexual AND talented. Naked and dignified. It’s OUR choice.”