Manchester: why is USA involved?

QUESTIONS ARE being asked about why the USA has been kept so closely informed about the Manchester suicide bombing.

It began on the night, when US officials were the first to announce that the explosion in the Manchester Arena had been caused by a suicide bomber – at a time when UK official sources had not even confirmed that it was a terrorist act.

Now the US security organisations appear to have leaked to the media official photos taken in the aftermath of the incident. The pictures, of parts of the backpack which contained the explosives and elements of the bomb, have been published around the world – leaving UK security officers hopping mad. Theresa May is going to have a word with Donald Trump about it when she sees him at a NATO meeting later today – or be a “bloody difficult woman”, we haven’t been told.

It seems astonishing that US security services should have such early access to information about what has happened in the UK, but this is what happens under what is known as the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing agreement. Any intelligence held by the UK National Counter-Terrorism group is automatically shared with their opposite numbers in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – and, it seems now, the rest of the world’s newspapers, TV and radio channels and the whole internet. That’s the US “secret services” for you.

•UK forces have revealed that the explosive device which Salman Abedi was carrying was of a sophisticated nature and was detonated by remote control rather than by him. Police have raided several addresses in and around Manchester where Abedi had lived in the past, but they have not found any evidence of explosives or the ingredients and/or components of a bomb. It is this which has led them to believe that Abedi was not acting alone – because someone else must have made and detonated the bomb. And if he was not acting alone, it is the shadow of the bomb-maker which makes them worry that their may be more recruits, waiting to carry his death packs out into the community.

•Eight men, including Abedi’s older brother Ismail (23), have so far been arrested in the UK in the course of police investigations into the Manchester bomber. One women was arrested but has since been released. Two men – Abedi’s father and his young brother Hashem (20), have been arrested in Tripoli, the capital of Libya.

•A number of people have told the press that they reported Salman Abedi to anti-terrorist hotlines – denting the public’s confidence that these hotlines are in any way effective. The Anti-terror hotline is: 0800-789 321

•Read more about it:
Death and injury at Manchester incident
https://eastlondonnews.co.uk/death-and-injury-at-manchester-incident/
Manchester update: death toll rises, suspect named
https://eastlondonnews.co.uk/manchester-update-death-toll-rises-suspect-named/
UK terror threat “critical”
https://eastlondonnews.co.uk/uk-terror-threat-critical/
Manchester: what East London says
https://eastlondonnews.co.uk/category/politics/

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