Grief, fear in Manchester
UK authorities on high alert, fearing another terrorist attack
Residents mourn the victims of terror bombing as security is increased across Britain.
MANCHESTER, England — The worst terrorist attack on British soil in over a decade was carried out by a 22-year-old U.K. citizen of Libyan descent who lived just a short drive from the concert hall that he transformed in an instant from a scene of youthful merriment into a tableau of horror.
But whether Salman Abedi acted alone or with accomplices remained a question that British investigators were urgently trying to answer Tuesday night as they reckoned with an attack more sophisticated and worrisome than any seen here in years.
The killing of 22 people — many of them teens — following a concert in this northern English city by American pop star Ariana Grande late Monday night was claimed Tuesday by the Islamic State, which said one of its “soldiers” was responsible.
Even as officials and experts cast doubt on the terrorist group’s assertion, however, authorities were scrambling to execute searches, arrest potential accomplices and raise security levels at a wide spectrum of public events that look newly vulnerable to attacks like the one on Monday.
After years of successfully fending off more sophisticated strikes even as countries across continental Europe have fallen victim to bombings, Monday night’s carnage reflected the fact that Britain is hardly immune amid a rising tide of extremist violence.
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.”
Earlier he had said that Abedi carried out the bombing alone, and that he “was carrying an improvised explosive device, which he detonated, causing this atrocity.”
But unlike in 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 Monday’s attack had been executed without help.
“Getting a car or a knife is easy,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a terrorism expert at the London-based 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.”
A family friend said Abedi traveled frequently between Libya and the U.K. “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.
Meanwhile, authorities from London to Scotland said they would be reviewing security plans for upcoming public events, and that even smaller gatherings that would not have been policed in the past may now get protection.
The security operation 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 the city — which has known its share of hardship, having been bombed relentlessly during World War II — would not succumb to division or anger. A poet, Tony Walsh delivered an ode to the city, titled This Is The Place.
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.