ISIS Claims Responsibility for Manchester Attack

LONDON - Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a bombing in the British city of Manchester that killed 22 people, including children at a concert.

The group said in a statement published on its social media channels that “one of the caliphate’s soldiers placed bombs among the crowds,” and it threatened more attacks. The group’s self-styled news agency Amaq separately claimed “a security squad” carried out the attack.

British Prime Minister, Theresa May said police know the identity of the bomber, who died in the blast late Monday, and believed he acted alone. However, police arrested a 23-year-old man on Tuesday morning in connection with the attack.

Screaming fans, many of them teenagers, fled the venue in panic after the explosion at the end of a sold-out concert by US star Ariana Grande in the 21,000-capacity Manchester Arena, in northwestern England.

“A single terrorist detonated his improvised explosive device near one of the exits of the venue, deliberately choosing the time and place to cause maximum carnage and to kill and injure indiscriminately,” May said in a statement outside Downing Street after an emergency ministerial meeting.

May chaired a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee, which brings together ministers and security officials, at 9am in London and was scheduled to chair another one later in the day. The terrorism threat level remains at severe.

The blast occurred in the foyer of the indoor arena, a covered area which links the auditorium to Victoria Station, a train and tram hub.

Witnesses reported being near the arena’s ticket machines and merchandise stores, as chaos ensued inside the concert hall. While 22 people have been confirmed dead, many of the 59 people injured have life-threatening conditions, May said.

“We know that among those killed and injured were many children and young people,” the prime minister added.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing bodies on the floor after the blast around 10.30pm on Monday, and some fans were trampled as panicked crowds tried to flee the venue.

“There were fathers carrying their little girls in tears,” said Sebastian Diaz, a 19-year-old from Newcastle.

Families were separated, with dozens of young people taken to nearby hotels overnight, and some parents were still desperately seeking for their children on Tuesday.

“I’m just hearing nothing – her phone’s dead,” Charlotte Campbell, whose 15-year-old daughter Olivia was at the concert, told BBC radio.

The first victim named was Georgina Callander, an 18-year-old from Lancashire in northwest England, whose death was announced by her college.

Andy Holey, who went to the arena to pick up his family, said the blast threw him about nine metres through a set of doors.

“When I got up and looked around there was about 30 people scattered everywhere, some of them looked dead, they might have been unconscious but there was a lot of fatalities,” he said.

Hayley Lunt took her 10-year-old daughter Abigail to the show. It was her first concert. The blast, “what sounded like gunshots: ‘bang, bang,’” came just as Grande left the stage: “It was almost like they waited for her to go,” the mother said.

“Then we just heard lots of people screaming, and we just ran,” she said. “What should have been a superb evening is now just horrible.”