British police says responding to serious incident at Manchester Arena

[Skeptic7]

Hmmm...goin' out on a thin limb here and taking a total shot in the dark and pulling this wild guess right out of my rear end that the perp(s) are "British", yet appear to be anything but! Also gonna assume they aren't Christians or Atheists either. 

 

Just sayin'...

 

 

[nontabury]

1 hour ago, simple1 said:

Please don't immediately start with the PC right wing commentary.

 

Condolences to the loved ones and friends of the murdered and injured. Hopefully those responsible will be quickly arrested and face the full force of the law.

So who caused this explosion? 

Condolences are O.K until the next one.

[Mosha]

BBC talking to someone who was at the concert. She was clear she heard 2 explosions, one shortly after the 1st.

Sent from my iris 505 using Tapatalk

[webfact]

Suicide bomber suspected in Manchester blast - two U.S. officials

 

A police van and an ambulance are seen outside the Manchester Arena. REUTERS/Jon Super

 

Initial signs point to a suicide bomber as the cause of a blast at a music venue in Manchester, England, that killed 19 people and injured 50, two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Monday.

 

British police said they are treating the explosion at a concert for U.S. singer Ariana Grande as a "terrorist incident."

 

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-23

[webfact]

May to suspend election campaigning after Manchester blast - Sky

 

Armed police officers stand near the Manchester Arena, where U.S. singer Ariana Grande had been performing, in Manchester, northern England, Britain May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew Yates

 

(REUTERS) British Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives will suspend campaigning for a national election on June 8 after at least 19 people died in Manchester in what police believe was a terrorist attack, broadcaster Sky News reported on Tuesday.

 

"A Tory (Conservative) source speaking to the Press Association (news agency) said that the Prime Minister's general election campaign was being suspended," Sky News said.

 

Opinion polls in recent days had shown a sharp narrowing of the Conservatives' large lead over the opposition Labour Party, though May remained on track to win re-election.

 

(Reporting by David Milliken; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-23

[steven100]

Tragic event .... watching it on ABC ... 19 dead and 50 injured ....

Terrorist must be wiped out .....    

The police and army must go after these scum and kill the muslims dead.

[i claudius]

The barbarians were at the gates and the left wing and the PC crowd just opened the doors for them ,Not just for the dead but R.I.P the west and the way of life as we knew it .

[graemeaylward]

Have just watched the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police giving a press briefing. What dignity! No immediate unsubstantiated hypothesis, no speculation, no showboating, just the tragic facts and information as to what is currently going on. Investigations are ongoing. RTP should use this as a training video. My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this terrible explosion.

Sent from my Lenovo A3000-H using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[geriatrickid]

30 minutes ago, Mosha said:

It does appear security was lax. Those who attended the concert had a cursory glance in their purses. Manchester Arena saying the explosion was in a public place. One witness was blown inside through an open door.
 

Stop  that please. There has not even been an investigation .

The explosion occurred in an area before the entry to the arena. Unless there are obligatory searches of any and all who walk in public places, then there was no way to  physically prevent the suicide bomber. It is quite difficult to initiate and execute public searches as it is  a breach of basic civil liberties and would be contested.  So what if there was a cursory search of a purse? The bomber is believed to have been a male wearing an explosive device. The only way to have stopped him would have been to ban all males including parents picking up their kids, from being 100 m. from the entry. Ever been to  the arrivals at Swampy? Have a look at the throngs of people packed waiting to pick someone up. That's what it was like outside the arena.

 

 

[Mosha]

Stop  that please. There has not even been an investigation .
The explosion occurred in an area before the entry to the arena. Unless there are obligatory searches of any and all who walk in public places, then there was no way to  physically prevent the suicide bomber. It is quite difficult to initiate and execute public searches as it is  a breach of basic civil liberties and would be contested.  So what if there was a cursory search of a purse? The bomber is believed to have been a male wearing an explosive device. The only way to have stopped him would have been to ban all males including parents picking up their kids, from being 100 m. from the entry. Ever been to  the arrivals at Swampy? Have a look at the throngs of people packed waiting to pick someone up. That's what it was like outside the arena.
 
 

Off your high horse. It was people who attended the concert who told BBC that.

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[brewsterbudgen]

12 minutes ago, i claudius said:

The barbarians were at the gates and the left wing and the PC crowd just opened the doors for them ,Not just for the dead but R.I.P the west and the way of life as we knew it .

Making political capital out of a terrorist atrocity is pretty sick.

[geriatrickid]

11 minutes ago, steven100 said:

Tragic event .... watching it on ABC ... 19 dead and 50 injured ....

Terrorist must be wiped out .....    

The police and army must go after these scum and kill the muslims dead.

Seriously.  Grab hold of yourself man and exercise some restraint. You do not know who was responsible  and yet you want to kill muslims.  This is exactly what these murderers want. They wish to  initiate sectarian strife. Control your primitive  urges please.

[geriatrickid]

2 minutes ago, Mosha said:

Off your high horse. It was people who attended the concert who told BBC that.
Sent from my iris 505 using Tapatalk
 

Not on  a high horse. repeating gossip is inappropriate. Panic and false information are the tools of the terrorists. Discipline, resolve, courage and  intelligence is how we defeat ignorance and violence.

[steven100]

2 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

Seriously.  Grab hold of yourself man and exercise some restraint. You do not know who was responsible  and yet you want to kill muslims.  This is exactly what these murderers want. They wish to  initiate sectarian strife. Control your primitive  urges please.

tell that to the parents of the young girl killed by the scum.  I'm a realist and an action person .. I speak the truth as seen from the facts.  But everyone is different .... 

[Scott]

Off-topic post removed.  

[Prbkk]

4 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

Not on  a high horse. repeating gossip is inappropriate. Panic and false information are the tools of the terrorists. Discipline, resolve, courage and  intelligence is how we defeat ignorance and violence.

The harsh reality and inescapable truth is that it is virtually impossible to stop this kind of attack. Security can stop a bomber getting inside but doesn't have much control outside ( if that's what happened, as seems likely). We saw that at Stade de France and it hasn't gone unnoticed. Dreadful.

[dick dasterdly]

28 minutes ago, steven100 said:

Tragic event .... watching it on ABC ... 19 dead and 50 injured ....

Terrorist must be wiped out .....    

The police and army must go after these scum and kill the muslims dead.

 

13 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

Seriously.  Grab hold of yourself man and exercise some restraint. You do not know who was responsible  and yet you want to kill muslims.  This is exactly what these murderers want. They wish to  initiate sectarian strife. Control your primitive  urges please.

I'm assuming that steven100 was referring to killing the muslims responsible for this terrorist attack (as it seems likely to have been muslims) - rather than all muslims!

[DaveE13]

My deep condolences. to the dead and their families.

This was a very popular entertainer among mainly teenage girls. My 16 year old in London among them 

I know the Police will be making a full enquiry and will bring anyone involved in these murders to justice.

 

[transam]

2 hours ago, simple1 said:

 

 

Condolences to the loved ones and friends of the murdered and injured. Hopefully those responsible will be quickly arrested and face the full force of the law.

Sadly that will be three square meals a day and not a noose....

[Sooo Upto Me]

These scum of the earth Islamic cowards terrorists have struck again in my country. This wot happens when we let all these migrants in. They form all these cells. Hope ur proud of urself UK government. 

They need to be wiped out from society.

RIP to all the teenagers that lost their lives to these monsters.

 

[johna]

2 hours ago, simple1 said:

Please don't immediately start with the PC right wing commentary.

 

Condolences to the loved ones and friends of the murdered and injured. Hopefully those responsible will be quickly arrested and face the full force of the law.

Will anyone be surprised if it is announced that the bombers were on a police watch list, but police had to respect their human rights? PC is for liberals not right wingers like me. 

[impulse]

22 minutes ago, Prbkk said:

The harsh reality and inescapable truth is that it is virtually impossible to stop this kind of attack. Security can stop a bomber getting inside but doesn't have much control outside ( if that's what happened, as seems likely). We saw that at Stade de France and it hasn't gone unnoticed. Dreadful.

 

Just to be real clear, I abhor this kind of violence and I'd love to see those involved hunted down and skinned alive.  But only those involved.  Not their neighbors, not the other people who go to their place of worship, and not innocent civilians in the countries they came from.

 

This kind of act just reinforces the futility of striking back in a manner that creates more terrorists than they can possibly kill.  The math just doesn't work out when you kill a terrorist in a way that instills a hatred in all the so called "collateral damage" that our leaders seem to think is an acceptable part of their war on terror.

 

[webfact]

UPDATE:

 

At least 19 killed in suspected attack at Ariana Grande concert in British arena

By Jon Super

REUTERS

 

Vehicles are seen near a police cordon outside the Manchester Arena, where U.S. singer Ariana Grande had been performing, in Manchester, northern England, Britain, May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew Yates

 

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - At least 19 people were killed and more than 50 injured in an explosion at the end of a concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in the English city of Manchester on Monday and two U.S. officials said a suicide bomber was suspected.

 

Prime Minister Theresa May said the incident was being treated as a terrorist attack. If confirmed, it would be the deadliest militant assault on Britain since four British Muslims killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London's transport system in July 2005.

 

Police responded to reports of an explosion shortly after 10:35 pm (2135 GMT) at the arena, which has a capacity for 21,000 people, and where the U.S. singer had been performing to an audience that included many children.

 

A witness who attended the concert said she felt a huge blast as she was leaving the arena, followed by screaming and a rush by thousands of people trying to escape the building.

 

A video posted on Twitter showed fans, many of them young, screaming and running from the venue. Dozens of parents frantically searched for their children, posting photos and pleading for information on social media.

 

"We were making our way out and when we were right by the door there was a massive explosion and everybody was screaming," concertgoer Catherine Macfarlane told Reuters.

 

"It was a huge explosion - you could feel it in your chest. It was chaotic. Everybody was running and screaming and just trying to get out."

 

A spokesman for Ariana Grande, 23, said the singer was "okay".

 

May, who faces an election in two and a half weeks, said her thoughts were with the victims and their families.

 

"We are working to establish the full details of what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack," she said in a statement. "All our thoughts are with the victims and the families of those who have been affected."

 

SUICIDE BOMBER?

 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but U.S. officials drew parallels to the coordinated attacks in November 2015 by Islamist militants on the Bataclan concert hall and other sites in Paris, which claimed about 130 lives.

 

Two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said that initial signs pointed to a suicide bomber as being responsible for the blast.

 

"The choice of venue, the timing and the mode of attack all suggest this was terrorism," said a U.S. counter terrorism official who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Britain is on its second-highest alert level of "severe" meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.

British counter-terrorism police have said they are making on average an arrest every day in connection with suspected terrorism.

 

In March, a British-born convert to Islam ploughed a car into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge, killing four people before stabbing to death a police officer who was on the grounds of parliament. He was shot dead at the scene.

 

In 2015, Pakistani student Abid Naseer was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up the Arndale shopping centre in the centre of Manchester in April 2009.

 

Manchester Arena, the largest indoor arena in Europe, opened in 1995 and is a popular concert and sporting venue.

 

Paula Robinson, 48, from West Dalton about 40 miles east of Manchester, said she was at the train station next to the arena with her husband when she felt the explosion and saw dozens of teenage girls screaming and running away from arena.

 

“We ran out,” Robinson told Reuters. “It was literally seconds after the explosion. I got the teens to run with me.”

 

Robinson took dozens of teenage girls to the nearby Holiday Inn Express hotel and tweeted out her phone number to worried parents, telling them to meet her there. She said her phone had not stopped ringing since her tweet.

 

“Parents were frantic running about trying to get to their children,” she said. “There were lots of lots children at Holiday Inn.”

 

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Kate Holton and David Milliken in London, Mark Hosenball in Los Angeles, John Walcott in Washington, D.C. and Leela de Kretser in New York; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Sandra Maler, Toni Reinhold)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-23

 

 

 

 

 

[simple1]

6 minutes ago, transam said:

Sadly that will be three square meals a day and not a noose....

Do you wish our government to act in the same manner as those who carry out these terrible atrocities? Personally I do not, nor to use similar language as these killer's ideology. as do some of the weirdos on TV.

[steven100]

US specialists and Reuters news reporting it was a Suicide bomber

 

[webfact]

Thai Embassy is checking if Thais are among the Manchester bomb attack

 

 

BANGKOK/MANCHESTER: -- Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said this morning that he has not yet been officially informed by the Thai Embassy in the United Kingdom if any Thais were injured in the bomb attack at a concert in Manchester.

 

But he said officials were checking to see if any Thais are among the injured.

 

He urged all Thais in the UK to take care of themselves.

 

The pop concert in Manchester killed 19 and injured around 50 people.

 

For the bomb explosion at Phramongkhutklao hospital, the minister said this has damaged the image of the country as the explosion happened in the hospital compound where such attack should not take place because it is inhumane.

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/thai-embassy-checking-thais-among-manchester-bomb-attack/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2017-05-23

[Scott]

Troll posts and replies removed.  

[goldenbrwn1]

Off topic I know but this is going to play against labour and esp Corbyn in the final weeks of the election. . On topic , there will be the usual rhetoric of sticking together  blah blah blah and never give in to terrorism. Then maybe give it a week and the usual lot will be marching on the streets of Britain telling us about tolerance ect and how we must not blame the religion of peace. Then the usual marches will continue about brexit, trump and the conservatives ect. 

 

And we all know what protest march we won't see even in the aftermath of this atrocity.  

 

[simple1]

29 minutes ago, johna said:

Will anyone be surprised if it is announced that the bombers were on a police watch list, but police had to respect their human rights? PC is for liberals not right wingers like me. 

Right Wing Political Correctness is pervasive on this forum - Google is your friend if you do not comprehend.

[vogie]

31 minutes ago, simple1 said:

Do you wish our government to act in the same manner as those who carry out these terrible atrocities? Personally I do not, nor to use similar language as these killer's ideology. as do some of the weirdos on TV.

"Do you wish our government to act in the same manner as those who carry out these terrible atrocities? 

 

err, yes!