Thanks for sharing the link. That video was eerie given the events of last night. It was significantly more realistic than the events that I’d participated in before.
Every arena I have been to lately do not allow purses or backpacks & diaper bags are only allowed if you have the kid with you and they have metal detectors. I read it was full of nails and bolts, so it must have been sizable.
Walked into the area outside the security cordon, in my guess. No matter how big you make the security checkpoint, there’s always going to be a crowd outside of it. Not to mention that I think the security to get into the arena, post-show, is going to be a lot less strenuous than the security to get into the arena before the show starts.
Temperature for Manchester was around 10-13C at about 10 to 11PM. Cool enough that a guy wearing a coat isn’t going to stand out. Pack suicide vest on body, wear coat over it, no big deal. It’s dark, and not like people are going to notice one more guy wearing a coat. Especially if he gets dropped off near the arena by a helper, as is often the case with suicide bombers. How much weight could you carry on a vest under a coat?
This was my guess. I don’t know how they handle security at events in the U.K., but here in the States, it’s not uncommon to have metal detectors and pat-downs for the crowd going into a sporting event / concert, but they clear all that out at the end when everyone is leaving to expedite the process. When I first heard that he struck at the end of the concert, I guessed that he waited until they threw the doors open at the end to ease the flow of people out of the arena, pushed his way into the middle of the crowd, and ka-boom.
I don’t have any information on how he arrived at the arena, but given that it’s basically connected to the public transit network, it’s also possible he rode the train there.
Hugely unlikely to have anything strapped to him. It was almost certainly peroxide based, and in liquid form in a back pack. All recent attacks around Europe have a similar homemade nature, even if the attacked didn’t make it himself.
Apparently some unnamed US official has leaked that he traveled from London by train. I have no idea how credible the Evening Standard is. I’d never heard of it until a minute ago.
What are YOU saying? That we should have based our assumptions on some nebulous “common sense” (which for some people, is just racism) and run with it before having all the facts? It seems quite reasonable to me to not discuss and point fingers at immigrants or Islam AT LEAST until we know for sure it’s relevant.
Yeah, the speculation at the time was Islamic Arab terrorists, as well, as in the 1993 WTC attack. I don’t recall anything about Iranians. Iraqis, maybe.
So? This is the process. Just because it looks like it was an Islamic terrorist attack doesn’t justify assuming it was, or assuming any future incidents are.
The irony here is Libya was one of the West’s better efforts. The Libyan militias did most of the heavy fighting. The West provided supplies & air power. IIRC no significant Western troops were deployed in Libya.
Libya’s new government is finding their own way now. The West isn’t interfering AFAIK.
So why would a guy with family from Libya want to blow up a bunch of Western kids? What did we ever do to him?