Britain on Thursday pressed a hunt for a Libya-linked network thought to be behind the deadly Manchester bombing as US President Donald Trump threatened to prosecute those responsible for leaking details from the investigation to US media.
London reacted furiously after sensitive details about the probe into Monday’s suicide attack, which targeted young concert goers and killed 22 people, appeared in the US press.
As more children were named as victims of the massacre, police carried out fresh arrests and raids.
Photo: Reuters
With the row over intelligence-sharing escalating, a shell-shocked Britain held a minute’s silence to remember the victims of the latest Islamic State-claimed atrocity to hit Europe.
After bowing their heads in silence, the grieving crowd at Manchester’s St Ann’s Square broke into a spontaneous, gentle rendition of Don’t Look Back in Anger by the city’s own Britpop band Oasis.
It was a message of defiance three days after Salman Abedi’s attack on young fans attending a concert by US pop star Ariana Grande.
“It’s like your own family just passed away, it’s just so, so sad,” 69-year-old Carmel McLaughlan told reporters, standing next to the sea of flowers filling the square.
As the nation mourned, Queen Elizabeth II visited children injured in the attack at a hospital in the northwestern English city.
“It’s dreadful. Very wicked to target that sort of thing,” she told Evie Mills, 14, and her parents.
Seventy-five people were still being treated in hospital, including 23 in critical condition, medical officials said.
Twelve of the injured are under 16.
With investigators pushing ahead with the probe into the attack, British authorities were left “furious” by repeated leaks of material shared with their US counterparts that they said undermined the investigation.
In Brussels for a NATO summit on Thursday, British Prime Minister Theresa May confronted Trump over the issue.
“She expressed the view that the intelligence-sharing relationship we have with the US is hugely important and valuable, but that the information that we share should be kept secure,” May’s spokesman said.
Trump, who led NATO allies in paying respects to the victims, said the leaks were “deeply troubling.”
“If appropriate, the culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he said in a White House statement.
Images obtained by the New York Times showed a detonator Abedi was said to have carried in his left hand, shrapnel including nuts and screws, and the shredded remains of a blue backpack.
“We are furious. This is completely unacceptable,” a British government source said of the leak.
Manchester police had stopped passing information to Washington on the probe, the BBC reported.
British police yesterday said they have resumed sharing intelligence about the Manchester bombing with US counterparts.
University dropout Abedi, 22, grew up in a Libyan family who reportedly fled to Manchester to escape the regime of then-Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
His father, Ramadan, and younger brother, Hashem, have been detained in Libya, with officials there saying the brother was aware of the planned attack.
They said both brothers belonged to the Islamic State group, while the father once belonged to a now-disbanded militant group with alleged ties to al-Qaeda.
Libya said it was working with Britain to identify possible “terrorist networks” involved.
Additional reporting by AP
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