London – Prime Minister Theresa May raised Britain’s terrorism threat level to the highest level of “critical” on Tuesday, meaning a further attack is likely or “imminent,” as police identified a suspected suicide bomber who killed 22 people in Manchester and chased potential accomplices.
May said the threat level was raised for the first time in more than two years based on intelligence following a preliminary investigation into the attack late Monday at the end of a concert by pop star Ariana Grande in Manchester Arena.
Military personnel could be deployed in urban areas to assist police, operating under police command, she added.
Several thousand people joined a vigil in central Manchester early Tuesday evening for the victims of the suspected suicide attack in a foyer at the arena, which also injured 59.
Greater Manchester Police named the suspected bomber, who died in the attack, as Salman Ramadan Abedi, a 22-year-old British man of Libyan origin.
“The priority remains to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network,” Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said in a statement, declining to comment further.
The University of Salford confirmed that Abedi was a student there, but it did not give his date of enrolment or his subject of study.
Police searched part of the university on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of several buildings, but university officials said that was “unrelated” to the terrorist attack.
An imam at a Manchester mosque, attended by Abedi and members of his family, told The Guardian newspaper that Abedi had looked at him “with hatred” after he preached a moderate sermon crticizing terrorists and emphasizing the sanctity of life.
School-aged children and teens were among the victims when a home-made device exploded at Manchester Arena.
Eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos had gone to see Grande perform with her mother and sister in the northern English city when she was killed in the explosion, The Guardian and other media reported.
A second victim, 18-year-old Georgina Callander, was also named.
Police said they arrested a 23-year-old man in connection with the attack, with rumours in British media suggesting he could be Abedi’s brother.
“This was among the worst terrorist incidents we have ever experienced in the United Kingdom,” May said in London after a meeting of the government’s emergency committee.
The “cowardice of the attacker was met by the bravery of the emergency services and the people of Manchester,” she added.
The police said some 400 officers had been deployed to investigate the attack. They raided two residential addresses in Manchester on Tuesday, carrying out a controlled explosion at one of them.
Queen Elizabeth II and Buckingham Palace held a moment of silence to honour the victims of Monday’s attack, as did members of the UN Security Council.
US President Donald Trump spoke to May by telephone to “offer condolences and support” on behalf of the United States, the White House said.
Trump condemned the attack in strong terms during his visit to the Middle East, calling those behind the attack “evil losers.”
“I won’t call them monsters, because they would like that term,” said Trump, adding that so many “young, beautiful” people had lost their lives.
Leaders from across the world sent condolences after the explosion late Monday, which came as thousands of people, many of them teenagers, were leaving the venue.
The Muslim Council of Britain and other Muslim groups condemned the attack. Harun Khan, secretary-general of the Muslim Council, paid tribute to police and emergency services who responded to the attack, as well as to civilians who helped them, urging “all those in the region and around the country to pool together to support those affected.”
In a joint statement, Manchester-based Muslim charity Human Appeal and two associated groups said they were “appalled and dismayed by this act of indiscriminate hatred which has claimed the lives of so many innocent people.”
Paris, the site of numerous terrorist attacks in recent years, again turned off the lights of the Eiffel Tower later as a mark of respect while flags were flown at half mast at many locations across Britain and Europe, including at the European Commission in Brussels.
Europe has been rocked by a string of Islamist terrorist attacks in the last three years, with five people being killed in London in March after a man drove a car at pedestrians and then stabbed a police officer.
-dpa
