2017 Manchester Arena bombing

On 22 May 2017, a suicide bombing was carried out at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, after a concert by American singer Ariana Grande. The attacker, identified by police as Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton of Libyan descent, detonated an improvised explosive device as concertgoers were leaving the arena. The explosion killed 22 people, including Abedi, and injured 59 others.

Attack
On 22 May 2017, at around 22:30 BST (UTC+01:00), a suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device packed with nuts and bolts in the foyer area of the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. The attack took place after an Ariana Grande concert that was part of her 2017 Dangerous Woman Tour. The concert was sold out, and up to 21,000 people may have attended. Many of the people were leaving through the foyer at the time of the explosion and were gathered there to buy concert merchandise.

Greater Manchester Police declared the incident a terrorist attack, identifying it as a suicide bombing. It was the deadliest attack in the United Kingdom since the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the first in Manchester since the 1996 Manchester bombing by the Provisional IRA.

Casualties
Police stated that 22 people, including the suicide bomber, were killed in the blast and 59 others injured, including children. North West Ambulance Service reported that 60 of its ambulances attended the scene, escorting 59 people to local hospitals and treating a number of walking wounded on site. Of the injured, 12 were reported to be children under the age of 16.

Perpetrator
The attacker was identified by officials as a 22-year-old British man, Salman Ramadan Abedi, who was known to the security services. He was born in Manchester on 31 December 1994 to a family of refugees from Libya who settled in south Manchester. He grew up in the Whalley Range area and lived in Fallowfield, a suburb of Manchester. Salman and his brother were known to worship at Didsbury Mosque, where their father, a security officer, was claimed to be a well-known person but a trustee of the mosque denied this and said, "We don't know who he is. We've never seen him." Abedi had worked at a bakery and his friends remembered him to be a skilled footballer and a user of cannabis.

Abedi had been involved with gangs and later radical Islam before the bombing. He had reportedly drawn attention to himself in 2015 by complaining after a sermon against terrorism and about the sanctity of life.

In 2014, Abedi became a student at the University of Salford, where he studied business management before dropping out. His parents, both born in Tripoli, returned to Libya in 2011 following Muammar Gaddafi’s removal from power while Abedi stayed in the United Kingdom.

Investigation
The property in Fallowfield where Abedi lived became a focus of the police investigation following the bombing. Armed police breached the house with a controlled explosion and raided it. A 23-year-old man was arrested in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in south Manchester in relation to the attack. Police carried out operations in two other areas of south Manchester and raided another address in the Whalley Range area.

Investigators are attempting to determine if the bombing was a lone wolf terrorist attack, or whether the bomber was part of a terror cell.

Aftermath
Later on the night of the bombing, at approximately 01:32 BST, a controlled explosion was conducted by police on a suspicious item in Cathedral Gardens. The item was later determined to be an item of clothing that had been left behind.

Residents and taxi companies in Manchester offered free transport or accommodation via Twitter to those left stranded at the concert. Parents of children attending the concert were separated in the aftermath of the explosion. A nearby hotel served as a shelter for children displaced by the bombing, with their parents being directed there by officials.

Manchester Victoria railway station, which is partly underneath the arena, was evacuated and closed, and services were cancelled. Victoria station remained closed into the following day.

The Trafford Centre and the Arndale Centre shopping malls were also reportedly evacuated for a time after a suspicious package was found.

After a COBRA meeting with Greater Manchester's Chief Constable, Ian Hopkins, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the UK's terror threat level was being raised to 'critical', its highest level. Following the raising of the terror threat level, Operation Temperer was activated for the first time, allowing 5,000 soldiers to replace armed police in protecting parts of the country.

Domestic
Prime Minister Theresa May and Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn condemned the bombing, while Queen Elizabeth II expressed her sympathy to the families of the victims. Campaigning for the general election was suspended by all political parties for two days after the attack. The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, called the attack "evil" and announced a vigil to be held in Albert Square the following evening. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, condemned the attack with a written letter he posted on his social media accounts. After attending a second emergency COBRA meeting in Whitehall, Prime Minister Theresa May announced the UK terror threat level has risen to Critical.

International
Condolences were expressed by the leaders and governments of dozens of countries. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, Pope Francis and Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Yousef Al-Othaimeen.