'Manchester terror attack might have been averted'
6 Dec 2017 5:22 PM GMT
LONDON: A suicide attack at a concert given by pop star Ariana Grande in Manchester in May might have been foiled had British investigators grasped the importance of "highly relevant" intelligence that reached their desks, according to a government-commissioned report released on Tuesday.
"It is conceivable that the Manchester attack in particular might have been averted had the cards fallen differently," the review concluded.
It noted that the bomber, Salman Abedi, 22, had been a "subject of interest" but was not under active investigation at the time of the attack.
Abedi was born and raised in Manchester. He had traveled to and from Libya in the days before he struck at Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and wounding more than 100.
The suicide bombing was one of four terrorist attacks in Britain this year that were studied by David Anderson, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. He was allowed to examine nine classified internal reviews, totaling 1,150 pages, that were conducted by counterterrorism police and the domestic intelligence
service MI5.
Anderson said authorities might have missed some important intelligence in the Manchester case. But he also noted, "Attacks continue to be successfully disrupted, often after intensive and painstaking work, with successful prosecutions and long prison sentences a regular occurrence."
Anderson said he was briefed on 20 recently thwarted plots. MI5's director told the British cabinet Tuesday that police and intelligence services had foiled nine terrorism plots in the past year.
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