Story highlights
Manchester Arena attack is third deadliest atrocity ever on British soil
But the UK is no stranger to terror attacks
The death toll in the Manchester Arena attack makes it the third deadliest terrorist atrocity on British soil, after the bombing of an airplane over Lockerbie in 1988 and the London bombings in 2005.
That the attacker went for the softest of soft targets – children and teenagers packed into the enclosed space of a pop concert – makes it all the more horrifying. As Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday morning, the attack “stands out for its appalling, sickening cowardice.”
Although Monday’s atrocity was particularly shocking in nature, Manchester and the wider United Kingdom have a long memory of terror attacks. For more than 30 years from the early 1970s, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group, carried out multiple attacks across the UK.
The deadliest were the Birmingham pub bombings of 1974, when 21 were killed. In 1996, the IRA detonated a massive 1500-kilogram (3300-pound) bomb in a Manchester shopping center not far from Monday night’s attack, injuring more than 200. The explosion destroyed buildings but a cast iron red postbox not far from the blast site remained unscathed; its image came to symbolize the resilience of the city.
Early on Tuesday morning, a picture of the same iconic postbox was shared hundreds of times on Twitter to represent how Manchester would once again remain steadfast in the face of terror.
From the IRA to ISIS
Deadly explosion at Ariana Grande concert
For more than a decade, Islamist terrorism has overtaken Irish republicanism as the key threat for British security services. On July 7 2005, a cell of four British Muslim suicide bombers inspired by al Qaeda detonated devices on the London transit network, killing 52.
Since then, successive British governments have warned the public to be on alert for terror attacks, elevating the threat level to “severe”, the second highest alert. And the UK’s homeland intelligence agency MI5 has thwarted dozens of terrorist plots, mainly involving British-born would-be attackers.
Since 2013, attention has shifted to Britons returning from Syria who have been inspired by the terror group ISIS.
In March, Mark Rowley, the highest ranking counter-terrorism official in the UK, said 13 terror attacks had been averted in the past four years. In a sign of the challenge facing the authorities, Rowley said there were up to 500 anti-terror investigations active at any one time.
With the Paris attacks of November 2015 and the Nice truck atrocity of July 2016, British counter-intelligence officials were increasingly concerned at the prospect of marauding attackers or lone wolves using low-tech methods of guns, knives and vehicles to cause death and destruction – plots that are harder to infiltrate than those involving sophisticated explosives.
Those fears were realized on March 22 when Khalid Masood, a single attacker inspired by ISIS, drove into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing four, before stabbing a policeman to death outside the House of Commons.
But the improvised explosive device used at the Manchester Arena shows that the nature of the terrorism threat in the UK remains wide-ranging.
Attack comes weeks before election
It is also the first terrorist attack to have taken place during a British general election. The timing has echoes of the Madrid train bombings of March 2004 that had a direct impact on Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar’s defeat in the general election three days later, which was partly attributed to his handling of that atrocity.
Yet it is unlikely the Manchester attack will change the outcome of the June 8 election, which Theresa May remains on course to win. Politicians from all sides will be wary of trying to score political points, particularly as campaigning has been suspended. If anything, voters feeling fearful of terrorism may be inclined to stick to the status quo and back a party led by a Prime Minister who has a background as an authoritarian Home Secretary and has pitched herself as the “strong and stable” candidate.
While the nature of the attack and the age of the victims have caused national shock, politicians and religious leaders said the nation would be resolute.
The Bishop of Manchester David Walker tweeted: “Please hold the people of #Manchester in your prayers. We’ve faced terror attacks before and this latest won’t defeat us.”
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis wrote on Facebook: “The devastation of these attacks, both at home and abroad, is becoming all too familiar but so too is the remarkable resolve with which we react to them … When we are attacked by hate, we respond with love. Nothing and no one can divide us.”
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester who was a Home Office minister during the 2005 London bombings, said: “London pulled together in exactly the same way Manchester, in its own unique way, will pull together and will stand strong and will stand together. We are grieving, we are hurt today but we are strong and this city has dealt with difficult days in the past and we will do so now.”
Johnny Mercer, a Conservative politician and former army officer, said: “This is a cowardly act, the type of which we have tragically become familiar with over the last few years, although not often with the scale of tragic consequences of last night’s atrocity. We live in an inherently safe country, where our security and emergency services work around the clock to keep us safe; these individuals want to disrupt our lives and draw attention to their dreadful cause, yet the majority of the time we live in isolation from their activities.
“My thoughts are solely with the families of those killed, and those injured as they fight for survival and put their lives back together in the years ahead.”
