Mounted police officers keep watch as people place flowers in Albert Square in Manchester, Britain, Wednesday, May 24, 2017.

Mounted police officers keep watch as people place flowers in Albert Square in Manchester, Britain, Wednesday, May 24, 2017. Emilio Morenatti/AP

The Manchester Attack and the Difficulty of Prevention

What does it mean that the bomber was 'known to security services?'

Just beyond the police cordon surrounding Manchester Arena, residents of the city gathered to lay tributes outside St. Anne’s Church on Tuesday afternoon. The mood was one of “horror and outrage,” said Mark Ashcroft, the bishop of nearby Bolton, after a suicide bomber blew himself up at an Ariana Grande concert on Monday evening, killing 22 and injuring 59 more, including children.

Clare Green, a Manchester native laying flowers at St. Anne’s said, “We do go to the arena a lot for concerts, so it’s a little bit close to home. … Manchester’s been on high alert for quite some time. I’ve always thought security can be better around big events. … It’s not exactly a strict procedure.”

The Manchester attack comes exactly two months after a single attacker drove a car into a crowd of pedestrians in Westminster, killing five people including a police officer and the attacker himself. Until Tuesday night in Manchester, that attack had been the deadliest in the U.K. since the London bombings of July 7, 2005—and the swift and professional response illustrated what security services had learned over the past decade. The 7/7 attack had led to increased investments in security, including specialized training for police officers in responding to terrorist incidents, and improved sharing of intelligence between organizations. And indeed, the measures appeared to have largely worked. As I wrote in March, according to the EU law enforcement agency EUROPOL, nearly half of 211 planned, foiled, or completed terrorist attacks across member states in 2015 were directed at the U.K., which suggested not only that the country was a frequent target, but also that it was uniquely successful at protecting itself. In April, police claimed to have thwarted two terrorist plots.

Salman Ramadan Abedi, who was revealed on Tuesday to have been the Manchester suicide bomber, succeeded anyway. And his plot involved a far more deadly level of sophistication than the use of a simple car and driver. “This is a much more professional-style attack,” said Chris Philips, the former head of the U.K.’s national counterterrorism office, on the BBC.

Manchester’s police chief has now said “this is a network we are investigating;” British Home Secretary Amber Rudd has pointed to the possibility that “he wasn’t doing this on his own.” And “making a bomb that works usually suggests the activity of more than one person,” said Rafaello Pantucci, the director of International Security Studies London’s Royal United Services Institute. “There are likely [to be] people who knew what he was up to at the very least,” he told me. Four people have so far been arrested in connection with the attack.  

Yet something else has changed since the 7/7 attacks, whose perpetrators were unknown to U.K. intelligence services until the attack was carried out. Abedi and the Westminster attacker were each among the roughly 3,000 religious extremists known to MI5, the U.K.’s domestic security and intelligence agency, but neither were thought to pose an imminent threat. This has become something of a pattern in recent terror attacks in Europe. Attackers in Belgium, France, and Germany were also known to security services prior to committing violence, suggesting the difficulty of distinguishing false alarms from real threats.

This also points to the limits of information collection in preventing attacks, and illustrates a broader point about terrorism prevention more generally: The threat is not always apparent until it is realized. Though EUROPOL’s data show the vast majority of plotted attacks are prevented, it also suggests that the U.K. must be inundated with information on possible suspects, and may lack the resources to keep track of them all. It has been reported in the U.K. media that security services have the resources for 24-hour surveillance on less than 50 individuals at any one time.

According to Samir Puri, a security expert at Kings College London, “Counterterrorism work is an art, it is certainly not an algorithm. This means that difficult judgment calls have to be made all the time, not least in terms of how acute the threat is as posed by individuals who may not yet have committed a crime. In this case, an awareness of the possible sympathies or associates of the person in question may not have been enough to accelerate the process of law enforcement intervention.”

As a result of the attack, all campaigning for the U.K. general election on June 8th has ceased for now, but this may not be the only impact for the election. Theresa May’s Conservative government is widely seen to be tough on security, especially in contrast to Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party recently criticized for his past links to IRA terrorists. But voters may equally see the attack as a blight on the Conservatives’ security record. On Tuesday, I asked the U.K. Home Office whether the Manchester bombing could be considered a failure of anti-terror policy. They declined to comment beyond a statement made by Home Secretary Amber Rudd, which did not address that issue.

“Any successful attack is by definition a failure somewhere,” Pantucci told me. “Exactly where this failure lies, in policy, practice [or] intelligence ...  is unclear at this point.”

Pantucci added, “This [attack] shows a level of determination and commitment to cause which is found only amongst a few ideologies. To walk into a crowd of children and blow yourself up like this shows a level of callousness and anger at the world.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.