The World Briefly

April 16, 2024

Punishing Failure

United Kingdom

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Hundreds of people who were injured or lost relatives in a 2017 bombing at a concert hall in Manchester launched legal action against British intelligence on Sunday after an inquiry found the attack could have been prevented, the Guardian reported.

Observers said it was the first time MI5, the United Kingdom military’s unit overseeing domestic security, has been sued over a failure to stop a terror attack on British soil. More than 250 people joined the case filed with the investigatory powers tribunal, a court that hears complaints about the nation’s intelligence services.

The bombing of the Manchester Arena on May 22, 2017, killed 22 people, including 10 under the age of 20. Suicide bomber Salman Abedi triggered his explosives as a dense crowd was leaving the venue after they had attended a concert by American singer Ariana Grande.

A report last year concluded that MI5 had received dozens of tips and other information that the agency could have acted on to stop Abedi – but didn’t. Its director general, Ken McCallum, apologized publicly for that failure.

Victims and their families say the agency should pay for its negligence.

In the two years before the Manchester bombing, Europe had been battered by a series of terror attacks that killed hundreds of people in Paris, Brussels, and Nice.

The inquiry established that by failing to launch a serious investigation on received intel, MI5 missed two crucial opportunities to prevent the massacre.

It argued that the agency could have acted upon Abedi’s return from Libya four days prior to the attack and discovered his homemade bomb stored in a car in Manchester.

The security service declined to comment, Sky News reported.

This story originally appeared in the April 16, 2024 newsletter, Like Father Like Son.