Explosion in Manchester UK

[BrainsBush]

Indeed very very sad. Every bomb attack is one too much. At a certain point you think we have reached the lower of the lowest and then an attack with kids in the audience....sick, sicker, sickest.

My thoughts are with all the people who have to live with this tragedy. Imagine your own kid go to a concert and then this...all the uncertainty, all the chaos, only the idea already makes me angry and miserable.

 

[Dotini]

Identity of bomber leaves May wondering if he acted alone.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ariana-...rena-bombing-suspect-salman-abedi-isis-claim/

LONDON -- CBS News confirmed Tuesday that the man who blew himself up the previous night at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, was 23-year-old Salman Abedi, who was known to British authorities prior to the attack.

In a generic statement posted online, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for Abedi's suicide bomb attack, which left 22 people dead, including children, at one of the entrances to the Manchester Arena.


Play VIDEO
Morell says U.K. bomber was "conscious of how to maximize casualties"

Officials said one man was arrested Tuesday in southern Manchester in connection with the attack, and urged people to avoid the center of the city as operations continued. Police and British Prime Minister Theresa May made it clear the focus of the investigation was to determine whether the bomber "was acting alone, or was part of a wider group."

ISIS issued its claim of responsibility in a brief, generic statement that did not identify the bomber and appeared to get some of the facts of the attack wrong. It claimed a "caliphate soldier managed to place a number of devices among a gathering of crusaders in Manchester, and detonated them."

------------------------

Manchester police confirmed the arrest of a 23-year-old man in the southern part of the city on Tuesday morning. They also said there was at least one controlled explosion carried out at the scene of a raid.

The suspect taken into custody on Tuesday was not identified, but police said the arrest was linked to the bombing. Witnesses said the man was smiling as he was apprehended.

The bomb was designed to kill and maim as many as possible; many of the survivors suffered shrapnel wounds and ball bearings were found at the scene.

 

[Johnnypenso]

delete tree'd ^^

 

[Dennisch]

who was known to British authorities prior to the attack.

This is what annoys the **** out of me. Almost all the blowuppies and their goons are known to the authorities and yet they manage to splatter themselves.

What are the services actually doing? If you know someone is radical you monitor their every move.

 

[Touring Mars]

This is what annoys the **** out of me. Almost all the blowuppies and their goons are known to the authorities and yet they manage to splatter themselves.

What are the services actually doing? If you know someone is radical you monitor their every move.

This is one of the great dilemmas that free and open societies face - she only way to stop them is to deprive them of their freedom to act before they commit such atrocities; but that means watching everything these people do 24 hours a day, every day - and taking pre-emptive action against someone who may well have not ever broken the law in any way; that is a dangerous thing to allow our security services to do, not to mention that it is a very difficult and expensive thing to do even if we did allow it (perhaps against our better judgement). Of course, would-be terrorists know this all too well and will take advantage in any way they can.

But I agree with the sentiment of your statement - surely something more can be done to punish those who are openly advocating such attacks and/or people with links to terrorist organisations and/or their financial supply lines. But the question is how to do that while maintaining a situation that allows everyone else to live their lives unmolested by the state or security services for holding views that some may find offensive. That said, I wouldn't lose much sleep if every radical Islamist on Twitter and jihadist forums had their IP addresses traced and the whole lot of them were jailed or deported for inciting murder; alas, while gratifying, that too would probably not stem the tide of radicalisation in the UK - a lot more needs to be done to address what causes people to become radicalised in the first place, and that is not as easy as just asking people which God they believe in.

 

[Dotini]

This is what annoys the **** out of me. Almost all the blowuppies and their goons are known to the authorities and yet they manage to splatter themselves.

What are the services actually doing? If you know someone is radical you monitor their every move.

Even more annoying to me was the use of the term "crusaders" as justification and motivation in ISIS's claim of generic responsibility. And by crusaders, I don't think they are referring to the medieval, but the modern and current.

Sykes–Picot Agreement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sykes Picot Agreement Map, an enclosure in Paul Cambon's letter to Sir Edward Grey, 9 May 1916

Created November 1915 – March 1916
Presented 23 November 1917 by the Russian Bolshevik government
Ratified 16 May 1916
Author(s)

Mark Sykes and

François Georges-Picot
Signatories

Edward Grey and

Paul Cambon
Purpose Defining proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Ententesucceed in defeating the Ottoman Empire

Mark Sykes

François Georges-Picot
The Sykes–Picot Agreement /ˈsaɪks pi.ko/, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret 1916 agreement between the United Kingdom and France,[1] to which the Russian Empire assented. The agreement defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in Southwestern Asia. The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiations leading to the agreement occurred between November 1915 and March 1916 [2] and it was signed 16 May 1916.[3] The deal was exposed to the public in Izvestia and Pravda on 23 November 1917 and in the British Guardian on November 26, 1917.[4][5]

The agreement is still mentioned when considering the region and its present-day conflicts.[6][7]

The agreement allocated to Britain control of areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the Mediterranean Seaand the River Jordan, Jordan, southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre, to allow access to the Mediterranean.[8] France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[8] Russia was to get Istanbul, the Turkish Straits and Armenia.[8] The controlling powers were left free to determine state boundaries within their areas.[8] Further negotiation was expected to determine international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers, including Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.[8]

Given Ottoman defeat in 1918 and the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the agreement effectively divided the Ottoman Arab provinces outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence.[9] An international administration was proposed for Palestine apart to the Acre-Haifa zone which was intended to be a British enclave in northern Palestine to enable access to the Mediterranean.[10] The British gained control of the territory in 1920 and ruled it as Mandatory Palestine from 1923 until 1948. They also ruled Mandatory Iraq from 1920 until 1932, while the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon lasted from 1923 to 1946. The terms were negotiated by British diplomat Mark Sykes and a French counterpart, François Georges-Picot. The Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes–Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks published the agreement on 23 November 1917, "the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted."[11]

The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western and Arab relations. It negated the UK's promises to Arabs[12]made through Colonel T. E. Lawrence for a national Arab homeland in the area of Greater Syria, in exchange for supporting the British against the Ottoman Empire.

 

[Dennisch]

If you're planning to blow up innocent people, feel sympathy for those who do, or are in any way connected to people like that, you should be in a position to have certain rights taken away, especially stuff we enjoy here in the 'free' West.

If you can't act as a normal functioning member of society, don't expect to be treated as one.

And to add to that, services around the world are already stepping on everyone's privacy as we speak. They want to know everything you do already.

 

[Dreadmed]

This was an attack on our way of life and what it represents; a young generation raised up to be (at the very least) tolerant of other cultures, making the choice out of their own free will to go and enjoy themselves in a country of relative order and stability. In short, the very antithesis of what Daesh wants to enforce. It's making me sick to the stomach just reading about this.

From some of the accounts I've been looking at, the bag checking/frisking at that venue has been very lax as of late. While it may not have averted a detonation it surely would've caused less casualties if the nut-job was stopped at the doors.

It's not as if she doesn't have form.

Freedom of Speech notwithstanding (a card she's only too happy to play) she should've been locked up at least twice over for some of the stuff that's been spouted. An attention seeker rotten to the core.

 

[Famine]

1 of the dead has now been confirmed as an 8 year old. I'm just completely struggling to comprehend how someone even begins to think about this as a target, whatever the message or reason.

For balance I would suggest that this should also apply to drone strikes of weddings in Yemen - and the fact that it apparently doesn't will almost certainly be behind both direct radicalisation and anti-West propaganda used by Da'esh to justify acts like this.

As a professional user of Twitter (that is someone who uses it for professional reasons) I've had to take the unusual step of muting the word Manchester from my feed as it has been rendered just about unusable today by celebrities Tweeting about how sad the events have made them - and other people retweeting them.

It's not that I'm heartless or anything (I mean, obviously I am) but... I know how to feel about this sort of thing without a celebrity to tell me. Moreover, thousands of Tweets about the event is exactly what the perpetrators want.

Then a celebrity writes a SEVENTEEN Tweet rant about why people shouldn't give another celebrity the attention she craves, without any sense of how ironic that is.

 

[Johnnypenso]

This was an attack on our way of life and what it represents; a young generation raised up to be (at the very least) tolerant of other cultures, making the choice out of their own free will to go and enjoy themselves in a country of relative order and stability. In short, the very antithesis of what Daesh wants to enforce. It's making me sick to the stomach just reading about this.

From some of the accounts I've been looking at, the bag checking/frisking at that venue has been very lax as of late. While it may not have averted a detonation it surely would've caused less casualties if the nut-job was stopped at the doors.

If you're stopped at the doors you just wait outside in the street for everyone to leave at the same time. Heightened security only changes the location of the terrorism it doesn't make it go away.

 

[Dreadmed]

If you're stopped at the doors you just wait outside in the street for everyone to leave at the same time. Heightened security only changes the location of the terrorism it doesn't make it go away.

I should clarify, by "stopped at the doors" I didn't mean he would then be turned away like someone who forgot his ticket; if the explosive was detected they would/should have used any contingency measures in place for such an eventuality.

 

[DLR_Mysterion]

Even more annoying to me was the use of the term "crusaders" as justification and motivation in ISIS's claim of generic responsibility. And by crusaders, I don't think they are referring to the medieval, but the modern and current.

Sykes–Picot Agreement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sykes Picot Agreement Map, an enclosure in Paul Cambon's letter to Sir Edward Grey, 9 May 1916

Created November 1915 – March 1916
Presented 23 November 1917 by the Russian Bolshevik government
Ratified 16 May 1916
Author(s)

Mark Sykes and

François Georges-Picot
Signatories

Edward Grey and

Paul Cambon
Purpose Defining proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Ententesucceed in defeating the Ottoman Empire

Mark Sykes

François Georges-Picot
The Sykes–Picot Agreement /ˈsaɪks pi.ko/, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret 1916 agreement between the United Kingdom and France,[1] to which the Russian Empire assented. The agreement defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in Southwestern Asia. The agreement was based on the premise that the Triple Entente would succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiations leading to the agreement occurred between November 1915 and March 1916 [2] and it was signed 16 May 1916.[3] The deal was exposed to the public in Izvestia and Pravda on 23 November 1917 and in the British Guardian on November 26, 1917.[4][5]

The agreement is still mentioned when considering the region and its present-day conflicts.[6][7]

The agreement allocated to Britain control of areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the Mediterranean Seaand the River Jordan, Jordan, southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre, to allow access to the Mediterranean.[8] France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[8] Russia was to get Istanbul, the Turkish Straits and Armenia.[8] The controlling powers were left free to determine state boundaries within their areas.[8] Further negotiation was expected to determine international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers, including Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.[8]

Given Ottoman defeat in 1918 and the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the agreement effectively divided the Ottoman Arab provinces outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence.[9] An international administration was proposed for Palestine apart to the Acre-Haifa zone which was intended to be a British enclave in northern Palestine to enable access to the Mediterranean.[10] The British gained control of the territory in 1920 and ruled it as Mandatory Palestine from 1923 until 1948. They also ruled Mandatory Iraq from 1920 until 1932, while the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon lasted from 1923 to 1946. The terms were negotiated by British diplomat Mark Sykes and a French counterpart, François Georges-Picot. The Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes–Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks published the agreement on 23 November 1917, "the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted."[11]

The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western and Arab relations. It negated the UK's promises to Arabs[12]made through Colonel T. E. Lawrence for a national Arab homeland in the area of Greater Syria, in exchange for supporting the British against the Ottoman Empire.

Psssh.

The Europe we live in now couldn't mount a Crusade to the local kebab shop even if its life depended on it

 

[Johnnypenso]

I should clarify, by "stopped at the doors" I didn't mean he would then be turned away like someone who forgot his ticket; if the explosive was detected they would/should have used any contingency measures in place for such an eventuality.

Same answer. Just move to where there are no security measures.

 

[Dotini]

The theory is certain cynical radical elements like al-Qaida and ISIS are mounting these attacks in order to generate the anti-Muslim backlash that will rally greater resources to their cause. Below is a list of recent terrorist attacks.



(AP) -- The deadly bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester is the latest attack in Europe in recent years. Here are some of the recent major ones:

April 7, 2017
A man driving a hijacked beer truck struck pedestrians at a Stockholm department store, killing 4 people.

March 22, 2017
A man drives his rented SUV into pedestrians at London’s Westminster Bridge, killing four people. The attacker then stabbed a police officer to death.

Dec. 19, 2016
A hijacked truck plows through a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12.

July 14, 2016
A truck driver targets Bastille Day revelers in Nice, killing 86.

March 22, 2016
Suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and subway kill 32 and injure hundreds. The perpetrators have been closely linked to the group that carried out earlier attacks in Paris.

Nov. 13, 2015
Islamic State-linked extremists attack the Bataclan concert hall and other sites across Paris, killing 130 people. A key suspect in the attack, 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, is arrested in Brussels on March 18, 2016.

Mourners light candles at a memorial site near the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.
Photographer: Simon Dawson
Feb. 14, 2015
A gunman kills Danish filmmaker Finn Noergaard and wounds three police officers in Copenhagen. A day later the gunman, Omar El-Hussein, attacks a synagogue, killing a Jewish guard and wounding two police officers before being shot dead.

Jan. 7-9, 2015
A gun assault on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and an attack on a kosher grocery store kills 17 people. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility for the attack, saying it was in revenge for Charlie Hebdo’s depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

May 24, 2014
Four people are killed at the Jewish Museum in Brussels by an intruder with a Kalashnikov. The accused is a former French fighter linked to the Islamic State group in Syria.

May 22, 2013
Two al-Qaida-inspired extremists run down British soldier Lee Rigby in a London street, then stab and hack him to death.

March 2012
A gunman claiming links to al-Qaida kills three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in Toulouse, southern France.

July 22, 2011
Anti-Muslim extremist Anders Behring Breivik plants a bomb in Oslo then launches a shooting massacre on a youth camp on Norway’s Utoya island, killing 77 people, many of them teenagers.

Nov. 2, 2011
The offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris are firebombed after the satirical magazine runs a cover featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad. No one is injured.

March 2, 2011
Islamic extremist Arid Uka shoots dead two U.S. airmen and injures two others at Frankfurt airport after apparently being inspired by a fake internet video purporting to show American atrocities in Afghanistan.

July 7, 2005
52 commuters are killed in London when four al Qaida-inspired suicide bombers blow themselves up on three subway trains and a bus.

March 11, 2004
Bombs on four Madrid commuter trains in the morning rush hour kill 191 people.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/recent-major-attacks-in-europe

 

[Danoff]

The theory is certain cynical radical elements like al-Qaida and ISIS are mounting these attacks in order to generate the anti-Muslim backlash that will rally greater resources to their cause. Below is a list of recent terrorist attacks.



(AP) -- The deadly bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester is the latest attack in Europe in recent years. Here are some of the recent major ones:

April 7, 2017
A man driving a hijacked beer truck struck pedestrians at a Stockholm department store, killing 4 people.

March 22, 2017
A man drives his rented SUV into pedestrians at London’s Westminster Bridge, killing four people. The attacker then stabbed a police officer to death.

Dec. 19, 2016
A hijacked truck plows through a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12.

July 14, 2016
A truck driver targets Bastille Day revelers in Nice, killing 86.

March 22, 2016
Suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and subway kill 32 and injure hundreds. The perpetrators have been closely linked to the group that carried out earlier attacks in Paris.

Nov. 13, 2015
Islamic State-linked extremists attack the Bataclan concert hall and other sites across Paris, killing 130 people. A key suspect in the attack, 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, is arrested in Brussels on March 18, 2016.

Mourners light candles at a memorial site near the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.
Photographer: Simon Dawson
Feb. 14, 2015
A gunman kills Danish filmmaker Finn Noergaard and wounds three police officers in Copenhagen. A day later the gunman, Omar El-Hussein, attacks a synagogue, killing a Jewish guard and wounding two police officers before being shot dead.

Jan. 7-9, 2015
A gun assault on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and an attack on a kosher grocery store kills 17 people. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility for the attack, saying it was in revenge for Charlie Hebdo’s depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

May 24, 2014
Four people are killed at the Jewish Museum in Brussels by an intruder with a Kalashnikov. The accused is a former French fighter linked to the Islamic State group in Syria.

May 22, 2013
Two al-Qaida-inspired extremists run down British soldier Lee Rigby in a London street, then stab and hack him to death.

March 2012
A gunman claiming links to al-Qaida kills three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in Toulouse, southern France.

July 22, 2011
Anti-Muslim extremist Anders Behring Breivik plants a bomb in Oslo then launches a shooting massacre on a youth camp on Norway’s Utoya island, killing 77 people, many of them teenagers.

Nov. 2, 2011
The offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris are firebombed after the satirical magazine runs a cover featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad. No one is injured.

March 2, 2011
Islamic extremist Arid Uka shoots dead two U.S. airmen and injures two others at Frankfurt airport after apparently being inspired by a fake internet video purporting to show American atrocities in Afghanistan.

July 7, 2005
52 commuters are killed in London when four al Qaida-inspired suicide bombers blow themselves up on three subway trains and a bus.

March 11, 2004
Bombs on four Madrid commuter trains in the morning rush hour kill 191 people.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/recent-major-attacks-in-europe

I was also having thoughts about the wider implications of this event and was looking for a place to post those thoughts. I think this thread is not the place for a general discussion about Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism. Maybe the ISIS thread, or, if we don't have a thread on that subject, maybe we need one.

 

[Dotini]

I was also having thoughts about the wider implications of this event and was looking for a place to post those thoughts. I think this thread is not the place for a general discussion about Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism. Maybe the ISIS thread, or, if we don't have a thread on that subject, maybe we need one.

IMO, in order to correctly react in both the short and long term, i.e., in such a way as to prevent further attacks, we need to understand each of these individual attacks as part of a greater context, or pattern. So yes, discussion of root causes must be sustained in the more overarching thread, but neither is it entirely out of place here, when we are confronted with reacting to yet another atrocity added to the list.

 

[Danoff]

IMO, in order to correctly react in both the short and long term, i.e., in such a way as to prevent further attacks, we need to understand each of these individual attacks as part of a greater context, or pattern. So yes, discussion of root causes must be sustained in the more overarching thread, but neither is it entirely out of place here, when we are confronted with reacting to yet another atrocity added to the list.

I agree that the long term implications are related. But all too often threads about the details of a particular tragedy become incomprehensible with political arguments. It seems a bit disrespectful to the event itself. Imagine for a moment that someone on GTPlanet lost a loved one in Manchester just now, how would you approach this thread?

This isn't specifically directed at you, but in general to everyone posting in any of the threads like this one, and the ones that are going to come... because I'm afraid we're bound to see more of these.

 

[Scaff]

This was an attack on our way of life and what it represents; a young generation raised up to be (at the very least) tolerant of other cultures, making the choice out of their own free will to go and enjoy themselves in a country of relative order and stability. In short, the very antithesis of what Daesh wants to enforce. It's making me sick to the stomach just reading about this.

From some of the accounts I've been looking at, the bag checking/frisking at that venue has been very lax as of late. While it may not have averted a detonation it surely would've caused less casualties if the nut-job was stopped at the doors.

It would appear as if it was as people were leaving, given that you would not need to get past security.

Freedom of Speech notwithstanding (a card she's only too happy to play) she should've been locked up at least twice over for some of the stuff that's been spouted. An attention seeker rotten to the core.

We don't strictly have freedom of speech in the UK, it comes via the European Court of Human Rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#United_Kingdom

Psssh.

The Europe we live in now couldn't mount a Crusade to the local kebab shop even if its life depended on it

That would be why we have managed to invade and hold the majority of the Middle East over the course of the 20th and to a degree 21st century?

You would have to ignore vast swathes of modern history to try and claim that, and I have no idea how teh hell you would do it with a straight face.


Meanwhile Fox is at it again:
https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/us-media-slammed-calling-manchester-hotbed-islamic-radicals/

 

[Dotini]

That would be why we have managed to invade and hold the majority of the Middle East over the course of the 20th and to a degree 21st century?

Actually, you have never been able to "invade and hold the majority of the Middle East" over any length of time. But what you have done is to fecklessly and disastrously pursue "spheres of influence and control", per the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The most recent example of which is Libya, invaded, despoiled, abandoned and now funneling refugees and terrorists into your lands. It's not the slightest wonder why so many Middle Easterners are furious with you.

 

[DDastardly00]

Indeed very very sad. Every bomb attack is one too much. At a certain point you think we have reached the lower of the lowest and then an attack with kids in the audience....sick, sicker, sickest

The lowest of the low was Sandy Hook, for me at least. I struggled to put that one behind me for weeks, I was haunted by it for long time. How someone could do something so horrible? Many of them were Kindergarteners and their teachers, 20 children died and 6 adults. That was pure evil incarnate and it was done by one of our own.

 

[Scaff]

Actually, you have never been able to "invade and hold the majority of the Middle East" over any length of time. But what you have done is to fecklessly and disastrously pursue "spheres of influence and control", per the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The most recent example of which is Libya, invaded, despoiled, abandoned and now funneling refugees and terrorists into your lands. It's not the slightest wonder why so many Middle Easterners are furious with you.

Just like the crusades then. Oh and the 'we' in that case very much includes the US.

 

[Danoff]

It's not the slightest wonder why so many Middle Easterners are furious with you.

Ok, seriously, this is not the place.

 

[MUSC4EVER]

Quite a few youngsters who were at the concert are still missing, there's a lot of it on Twitter that's been retweeted endlessly to help find them.

 

[DDastardly00]

Quite a few youngsters who were at the concert are still missing, there's a lot of it on Twitter that's been retweeted endlessly to help find them.

I saw the pic being circulated with all of them, I hope more turn up safe and sound..

 

[Robin]

I don't understand how people could still be missing at this stage, surely anyone who ended up in hospital (even if deceased) would be accounted for, as would those unaccompanied children who were taken in by the Holiday Inn. It would be seriously worrying if these people cannot be found or have had no contact with family members after this many hours.

 

[TenEightyOne]

those unaccompanied children who were taken in by the Holiday Inn

This is a confusing part of the story: like you (and many others) I believed that this was what the Holiday Inn did, but they're denying that it happened (at least as a concerted effort outside opening their doors to victims-in-general). There was a lot of fakery on Twitter and Facebook last night and it seems like this was part of it.

It would be seriously worrying if these people cannot be found or have had no contact with family members after this many hours.

Sadly the reality is that somebody is listed missing until their body is identified or until they're conscious and compos-mentis enough to identify next of kin. I suspect that's what we're seeing here (in genuine 'missing' cases at least). But yes, I agree, it would be very odd for somebody to now be genuinely missing if they weren't amongst the victims either in hospital or worse.

 

[GTPVenomZombie]

My mam is going to a concert in July @ the metro arena in Newcastle to see Sum41 with my step dad. I'm scared for them going tbh, this has got me in fear of it happening again.
Turning 17 tomorrow, I don't want to lose my parents at such a young age.
Horrible acts just like this make me fear the worst would happen to my loved ones.

 

[MUSC4EVER]

My Mum is going to London for three days next month to see a few shows, now a bit worried....

 

[Famine]

My Mum is going to London for three days next month to see a few shows, now a bit worried....

Firstly, that's what they want. That and the creation of an oppressive regime in the name of safety so that we're no longer free.

Secondly, does she not remember the IRA? Jesus, if Brits gave in to coward asshats who blew up public places, we wouldn't have made it through the 1970s, never mind the 1980s. Or the 1990s.

I mean, they only attacked Manchester 21 years ago (and the Arndale, in fact), so it's not something that should have faded from the memory of any Brit old enough to have a child old enough to use GTPlanet.

 

[DDastardly00]

Firstly, that's what they want. That and the creation of an oppressive regime in the name of safety so that we're no longer free.

Secondly, does she not remember the IRA? Jesus, if Brits gave in to coward asshats who blew up public places, we wouldn't have made it through the 1970s, never mind the 1980s. Or the 1990s.

I mean, they only attacked Manchester 21 years ago (and the Arndale, in fact), so it's not something that should have faded from the memory of any Brit old enough to have a child old enough to use GTPlanet.

Ok I agree with the point you are making that we should not cave and live in fear because that is exactly what they want, but I don't think the IRA is a great comparison. The IRA more often than not went after military targets not concert goers or sports events, or young teens and children attending a pop concert. They also gave advanced warnings to clear out an area before they planted explosives a blew stuff up, not every time but often. The IRA are certainly terrorists but they are another animal entirely when compared to Jihadists.