Theresa May has just spoken from Downing Street about the terrorist attack in Manchester. She said that the police and the security services believed they know the identity of the suicide bomber, but do not wish to reveal it for now. She said that the bomber had blown themselves up by one of the exits from the arena at the end of the concert, which would mean that the attacker did not have to go through security. The police and the security services are, she said, currently trying to establish whether the attacker was operating alone or not.
This is the second statement responding to a terrorist attack that Theresa May has had to do in the last three months. In both, she struck a suitably defiant tone—emphasising how Britain and our values and way of life would not bow to these nihilistic terrorists. But while the Westminster terrorist attack was a very low-tech affair, a car and a knife, this looks like a far more sophisticated operation: manufacturing a suicide belt is technically complex.
The attack was also a reminder of how many ‘soft targets’ there are when your evil aim is simply to kill as many people as possible. While increasing the security around parliament is a relatively simple business, raising it around every concert—or any other kind of—venue in the country is far more difficult. Ultimately, this is why it is imperative we defeat the ideology behind this terrorist evil. For as long as it stalks the globe, it will never be possible to stop every attack.
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