Missed chance to stop bombing at Ariana Grande’s Manchester concert – UK inquiry

LONDON, United Kingdom – There was a significant missed opportunity to take action that might have stopped a deadly suicide bombing at the end of an Ariana Grande pop concert in the English city of Manchester in 2017, an inquiry into the attack concluded on Thursday, March 2.

Twenty-two people – the youngest aged just eight – died in the blast and more than 200 were injured when a man detonated a homemade bomb at Manchester Arena as parents arrived to collect their children following the US singer’s show.

“There was a significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack,” inquiry chairman John Saunders said in his third and final report into the bombing, the deadliest in Britain since the 2005 London transport suicide attacks.

“It is not possible to reach any conclusion on the balance of probabilities or to any other evidential standard as to whether the attack would have been prevented.”

Saunders’ previous reports have concluded there were serious shortcomings and mistakes made in the security at the venue. He also found that one of those killed would probably have survived if the response by the emergency services had not been so flawed.

The bombing was carried out by Salman Abedi, 22, while his younger brother Hashem was jailed for 55 years in 2020 for encouraging and helping him.

A third, elder brother, Ismail, was in July convicted in his absence of failing to attend the inquiry to give evidence, having fled Britain. The Abedi brothers were born to Libyan parents who emigrated to Britain during the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. – Rappler.com