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Good afternoon. Welcome to the Daily Politics. | :00:40. | :00:52. | |
Following Monday night's terrorist attack in the heart of Manchester, | :00:53. | :00:54. | |
the UK terror threat level has been raised to its highest | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
meaning more attacks may be imminent. | :00:58. | :00:59. | |
It means military personnel will now be deployed to protect key sites | :01:00. | :01:02. | |
including Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. | :01:03. | :01:04. | |
Election campaigning is suspended for a second day | :01:05. | :01:06. | |
we will be reporting on the events in Manchester. | :01:07. | :01:15. | |
The bomber, Salman Abedi killed 22 people and injured 64 | :01:16. | :01:18. | |
many of the injured are still in critical care. | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
Police have arrested three men in Manchester this morning. | :01:22. | :01:23. | |
The bomber's 23-year-old brother was arrested yesterday. | :01:24. | :01:32. | |
Flowers have been laid and tributes have been paid to the 22 people | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
killed in the attack at Manchester Arena. | :01:36. | :01:46. | |
Eight of the victims are known to be Saffie Rose Roussos, Olivia | :01:47. | :01:49. | |
Campbell, Lisa Lees, Jane Tweddle-Taylor, Martyn Hett, John | :01:50. | :01:51. | |
Atkinson, Georgina Callander and Kelly Brewster. The Polish Foreign | :01:52. | :01:53. | |
Minister has said that a Polish couple who went missing after the | :01:54. | :01:54. | |
attack are among those killed. Thousands of people turned out | :01:55. | :02:06. | |
for the vigil in Manchester yesterday evening and to hold | :02:07. | :02:08. | |
a minute's silence to Home Secretary Amber Rudd, | :02:09. | :02:10. | |
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Commons Speaker John Bercow | :02:11. | :02:15. | |
stood on stage alongside Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham | :02:16. | :02:18. | |
and Greater Manchester Police Chief This morning members of the cabinet | :02:19. | :02:38. | |
met as the Prime Minister Theresa May again chaired COBRA, the | :02:39. | :02:40. | |
government's crisis response committee. | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
Chris Philips, former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
office, will be with me throughout today. Welcome to the programme, the | :02:48. | :02:54. | |
fallout from Manchester dominating everything, huge security | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
investigation now under way. Where do you see... Where are we at? The | :02:59. | :03:02. | |
most interesting point, the things that have not come out yet which are | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
absolutely essential to know, it was this home-made explosive? If it was, | :03:08. | :03:12. | |
then somewhere in the UK, there is a bomb factory that needs to be found. | :03:13. | :03:21. | |
Was the device strapped to the person, a suicide bomb, or was this | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
a dropped case, in which case, as may have been designed to be the | :03:26. | :03:29. | |
first of a number, in which case, there are still bombs in the UK | :03:30. | :03:35. | |
somewhere. Unlike 77, backpacks, I think, they had them on their back, | :03:36. | :03:40. | |
I have seen pictures, or at least mock-ups, recreations, suggesting | :03:41. | :03:47. | |
this suicide bomber had a suitcase. -- 7/7. I have seen the same, I do | :03:48. | :03:51. | |
not know if that is fact or opinion, I have not heard any thing from the | :03:52. | :03:54. | |
police, its changes totally the way that this investigation will go. It | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
was quite obvious to me straightaway that this was not a one-man band who | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
has done this, there must be a group behind it, but whether this person | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
was going to drop the case and walk away, in which in which situation we | :04:09. | :04:14. | |
would have potentially a number of other cases ready to be dropped. We | :04:15. | :04:17. | |
will go through this in detail with you and others later. Am I right in | :04:18. | :04:23. | |
assuming, because, as you say, security services think this was not | :04:24. | :04:27. | |
just a lone wolf operation, that he had help, and that help is still out | :04:28. | :04:31. | |
there, but that is why the security alert is now up at the highest | :04:32. | :04:35. | |
critical level? I said yesterday, if the level goes up to critical, then | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
for sure, they are chasing other people. When you get a situation | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
like this, if it is a home-made explosive, absolutely no way that | :04:46. | :04:48. | |
one person can do that, it takes a lot of work, you have to get the | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
ingredients, you have to get the understanding of how to do it and I | :04:54. | :04:56. | |
don't think there is anything that says this would have been a one-man | :04:57. | :05:00. | |
band. We will be going through a lot of that in the next hour. | :05:01. | :05:14. | |
This morning's newspapers all have pictures of the young victims on | :05:15. | :05:16. | |
their front pages. The Sun's headline is 'Pure Evil' | :05:17. | :05:28. | |
with a picture of the youngest victim Saffie Roussosa alongside the | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
bomber Salman Abedi. The Guardian again has eight year old Saffie and | :05:32. | :05:34. | |
a picture of the first victim to be named, Georgina Callander. The Daily | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
Mail has the same two girls with the headline 'soldiers on the streets' | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
And The Times looks at the links Salman Abedi had with Libya. The | :05:45. | :05:49. | |
Telegraph looks at the raising of the terror threat level and reports | :05:50. | :05:51. | |
that we will be seeing troops on the streets. And finally the Mirror has | :05:52. | :05:53. | |
the headline 'killed by evil'. Well last night the Prime Minister | :05:54. | :05:59. | |
announced that the independent body, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre | :06:00. | :06:01. | |
had decided to raise the terror threat from "critical" to "severe" | :06:02. | :06:04. | |
for the first time since June 2007. This means an attack | :06:05. | :06:07. | |
may be imminent. This morning I said that the joint | :06:08. | :06:20. | |
terrorism analysis Centre, the independent organisation responsible | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
for setting the threat level on the basis of intelligence available was | :06:25. | :06:26. | |
keeping the threat level under constant review. It has now | :06:27. | :06:34. | |
concluded on the basis of today's investigations that the threat level | :06:35. | :06:36. | |
should be increased for the time being, from severe to critical. This | :06:37. | :06:43. | |
means their assessment is not only that an attack remains highly | :06:44. | :06:46. | |
likely, but that a further attack may be imminent. The Prime Minister | :06:47. | :07:00. | |
last night. And this morning Home Secretary Amber Rudd gave more | :07:01. | :07:03. | |
detail on what we can expect to see with the increased threat level. | :07:04. | :07:05. | |
Good progress has been made with a number of arrests overnight and that | :07:06. | :07:09. | |
will continue. We have now gone to a critical level in terms of the | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
threat. Operation Tempora has been invoked, that means there will be | :07:15. | :07:18. | |
additional military personnel coming to backfill the armed police | :07:19. | :07:22. | |
officers, so that they can support other areas. Today we have 984 | :07:23. | :07:28. | |
members of the military coming forward, as requested by the police. | :07:29. | :07:32. | |
They will be initially deployed in London but also in the rest of the | :07:33. | :07:35. | |
country as requested, and they will perform an important part of the | :07:36. | :07:47. | |
defence going forward. Let's take a look in more detail at what the new | :07:48. | :07:52. | |
threat level means. "Critical" is the highest terrorist threat level | :07:53. | :07:55. | |
that the UK can face. As the Prime Minister said, it means that a | :07:56. | :07:57. | |
further attack may be imminent, in the view of security and police | :07:58. | :07:59. | |
experts. We had previously been on the second highest threat level, | :08:00. | :08:02. | |
which is called "severe". Using the critical threat level is unusual - | :08:03. | :08:04. | |
it's only been used twice before, once in 2006 and once in 2007. | :08:05. | :08:20. | |
The PM said the police, as a result, had asked for military assistance | :08:21. | :08:23. | |
in guarding key sites around the country. | :08:24. | :08:25. | |
These locations include the House of Commons, Buckingham Palace | :08:26. | :08:27. | |
It also means that the police will be given | :08:28. | :08:30. | |
extra resources to deal with the critical threat level. | :08:31. | :08:32. | |
The terrorist threat level is set by the Joint | :08:33. | :08:34. | |
Terrorism Analysis Centre, which draws on expertise from the | :08:35. | :08:37. | |
The decision to deploy troops is for the government. | :08:38. | :08:40. | |
The Home Secretary Amber Rudd stressed this morning | :08:41. | :08:42. | |
that the critical threat level was a "temporary arrangement" | :08:43. | :08:44. | |
to respond to what she called an "exceptional event". | :08:45. | :08:55. | |
And joining us now is Professor John Gearson, from the Centre for Defence | :08:56. | :08:57. | |
Studies at King's College London... Welcome to the programme, in | :08:58. | :09:06. | |
practice, what does moving to critical mean? For government | :09:07. | :09:09. | |
buildings and public sector entities like universities and hospitals, | :09:10. | :09:14. | |
there will be different security, more enhanced security, people will | :09:15. | :09:18. | |
be called on to identify themselves in a way that they may not in every | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
single building, the decision to deploy the military, this is outside | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
the normal step up to severe, and in fact that is something that is going | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
to attract some comments. Can I clarify, some people have assumed | :09:32. | :09:34. | |
that because it went to critical, that means the military is deployed, | :09:35. | :09:41. | |
that is not the case. Two separate decisions, saying that need to move | :09:42. | :09:45. | |
to critical, that is an independent decision but then saying we need to | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
deploy troops, that is a government decision. Military deployment is not | :09:50. | :09:55. | |
linked, even going to critical, it could be chosen to support severe | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
level. This has being driven not by in my opinion a long-term considered | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
approach but essentially, a result of the Paris attacks, this policy of | :10:06. | :10:09. | |
been able to called upon the military is a profound change in the | :10:10. | :10:16. | |
attitude of the Ministry of Defence and the military. We began to see | :10:17. | :10:19. | |
more and more French military on the streets, French cities and | :10:20. | :10:27. | |
infrastructure. They say what is the meaning of an 18 month straight of | :10:28. | :10:31. | |
emergency, with military in the streets, the French have criticised | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
themselves for that, but Britain has been reluctant to use the military | :10:36. | :10:38. | |
for a number of reasons which we cannot go into now. Appropriate, | :10:39. | :10:44. | |
cautious use of the military is appropriate at a time of national | :10:45. | :10:48. | |
emergency. If we want to call this a national emergency, and by calling | :10:49. | :10:54. | |
this critical, they are saying this is something unusual. We have not | :10:55. | :10:58. | |
designated this a national emergency officially. Unlike the French, | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
President Francois Hollande, previous president, he declared a | :11:03. | :11:06. | |
state of emergency and that state of emergency. That is right, many | :11:07. | :11:12. | |
people thought that this is a mistake, the British approach is | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
predicated on normality, things may be dangerous, but normal life is | :11:18. | :11:21. | |
going to continue, on the other hand, when a suicide bomber, if it | :11:22. | :11:25. | |
proves to be a suicide bomber, let's presume it is, even if it is in a | :11:26. | :11:30. | |
suitcase, if a suicide bomber kills eight, nine, 10-year old, that is | :11:31. | :11:34. | |
not normality, I can see why the government wants to respond, the | :11:35. | :11:38. | |
question is whether the military do something useful, whether that be a | :11:39. | :11:42. | |
presence on the street or not. Is the deployment of the military more | :11:43. | :11:46. | |
than just symbolic? I think it is disappointing because it tells a | :11:47. | :11:49. | |
story that the police do not have the resources to do the job we want | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
them to do, once the police on the streets, and most police forces, | :11:55. | :11:57. | |
most of the officers I speak with would say the resources are not | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
there to maintain the number of officers on the streets, | :12:01. | :12:04. | |
particularly with guns, his officers do not have enough officers they do | :12:05. | :12:06. | |
not have enough officers that can carry guns to cover all the | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
locations for a sustained period of time, that is why they need the | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
military, disappointing we have got to that stage. It is your | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
understanding as well that it is the police that asked the government for | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
the military to step up, and help take the pressure of the armed | :12:23. | :12:25. | |
guarding of sensitive sites. I would imagine that is the case, I think | :12:26. | :12:32. | |
what the police want is actually the ability to respond, what that means | :12:33. | :12:35. | |
is having the responders available, right across the country, actually, | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
and what we do know is, actually, London has a pretty good response to | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
armed incidents, the rest of the country not so much, and this has | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
happened in the north-west of the country, this has not happened in | :12:48. | :12:52. | |
London, constabularies in that area do not have the number of firearms | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
officers available in London. You were saying this had gone to | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
critical because it was clear that Salman Abedi had not been operating | :13:01. | :13:04. | |
on his own, if that is the case, that means, in this police operation | :13:05. | :13:08. | |
that is going on, they will be getting a wealth of the tail, it is | :13:09. | :13:12. | |
not becoming public, obviously, quite rightly, but there is a tonne | :13:13. | :13:17. | |
of stuff that they will be across. Hopefully, they have some history of | :13:18. | :13:22. | |
this guy, they know who he is, they know who he has been playing with | :13:23. | :13:26. | |
over the last six to 12 months. It is not clear that they do. That is | :13:27. | :13:31. | |
one of the issues, and of course, we would expect them to keep this quiet | :13:32. | :13:36. | |
at the moment, but at this moment, I would have expected to see quite a | :13:37. | :13:41. | |
lot of arrests, crucially, the bomb factory, if this is a home-made | :13:42. | :13:45. | |
explosive, that bomb factory is dangerous, something that when you | :13:46. | :13:48. | |
make home-made explosives, it is extremely dangerous. And volatile. | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
And it can go bang at any moment. The police will be wanting to get | :13:54. | :13:56. | |
into that as quick as possible to make sure that other people are | :13:57. | :14:00. | |
safe. We have seen people moved out of flats and houses to deal with | :14:01. | :14:05. | |
that. With what we know so far about Salman Abedi, and his Libyan parents | :14:06. | :14:09. | |
and background, what do you make of where we are, was this man... Was | :14:10. | :14:18. | |
this man on the security radar, or was he to low-level? I am sceptic | :14:19. | :14:25. | |
about the concept of a lone wolf, nobody is alone, everybody has | :14:26. | :14:28. | |
connections that lead to the point at which they carry out violent | :14:29. | :14:31. | |
attacks, the picture coming out this morning in the press and of easily | :14:32. | :14:34. | |
it has not been confirmed by the government is a bit conflicting, on | :14:35. | :14:37. | |
the one hand, a device that needs more than basic amateurish mixing of | :14:38. | :14:44. | |
chemicals in a pot in a room and a desire to carry out a suicide | :14:45. | :14:47. | |
attack, on the other hand, neighbours reporting going into the | :14:48. | :14:51. | |
street and chanting prayers, growing a beard, doing the kind of | :14:52. | :14:55. | |
operational security that no serious professional terrorist would do, | :14:56. | :14:57. | |
they would be doing the opposite, they would not be chanting, they | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
would be going out of their way to where Western clothes. We cannot | :15:02. | :15:08. | |
ascribe brilliance to people until we know whether they were connected. | :15:09. | :15:12. | |
To make a suicide bomb that works is actually quite difficult. I think, | :15:13. | :15:19. | |
we saw on the 21st of July, 2005, that just by getting the fixture | :15:20. | :15:24. | |
wrong, the devices did not work. That was the one that attempted to | :15:25. | :15:32. | |
follow up 77. -- 7/7. Then we had the shooting of the Brazilian, Jean | :15:33. | :15:35. | |
Charles de Menezes, during the pursuit of those people, by the way, | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
they did not go down fighting, they surrendered, quite an interesting | :15:41. | :15:42. | |
thing to remember about suicide bombing | :15:43. | :15:53. | |
We know Abedi had just come back from Libya. We know he was chanting | :15:54. | :16:00. | |
very loudly in Arabic, prayers and parts of the Koran. And I saw one | :16:01. | :16:06. | |
report that said there was a black flag flying from the garden with | :16:07. | :16:10. | |
Arabic script on it. Doesn't that alert anybody? Let's hope so. He had | :16:11. | :16:18. | |
all the signs that should have been alerted. I read also that an imam | :16:19. | :16:26. | |
saw him and said, I am worried about this guy. Did he tell the police? | :16:27. | :16:30. | |
Have the neighbours told the police? Whilst this stuff may be happening, | :16:31. | :16:35. | |
someone has to tell the police. That is the only way we can get involved. | :16:36. | :16:40. | |
What do you make of it when you add what we know already to it? My | :16:41. | :16:48. | |
speculation is that this individual did travel to Libya and had contact | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
with people with links to Islamic State and may have had some | :16:53. | :16:58. | |
training. But he does not seem to display the professional qualities | :16:59. | :17:06. | |
we would expect. The question is, are there more bombs and people? Or | :17:07. | :17:09. | |
are there these slightly volatile individuals who may or may not have | :17:10. | :17:14. | |
had some connection and some training and the ability to do | :17:15. | :17:18. | |
damage. French intelligence say he also went to Syria. We don't know if | :17:19. | :17:26. | |
he was trained in Libya. We don't know what the connections of his | :17:27. | :17:29. | |
father were. There are reports that he fell out with the Gaddafi regime | :17:30. | :17:33. | |
and left. That was why they ended up in Britain. We will come to that | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
later in the programme. But the Home Secretary said this morning that | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber, was known to the security services | :17:43. | :17:49. | |
"Up to a point". What does that mean? It probably means he may have | :17:50. | :17:52. | |
had contact with somebody who was on a watchlist or may have been watched | :17:53. | :17:57. | |
constantly by the security service. They have to make tough judgments | :17:58. | :18:06. | |
every day in asking for resources. If you want to monitor somebody, | :18:07. | :18:12. | |
especially in the current climate of encryption, we know the attacker | :18:13. | :18:20. | |
Westminster was whatsapping before he drove his car across listeners to | :18:21. | :18:23. | |
bridge. We don't have those messages yet. There is an ongoing discussion. | :18:24. | :18:33. | |
The question is, do these people have the ability to be ahead of the | :18:34. | :18:40. | |
security services? In this case, sadly, they did. And although this | :18:41. | :18:47. | |
is a tragic event, it doesn't necessarily indicate, well, it's a | :18:48. | :18:55. | |
failure of our counterterrorism efforts if anyone gets through, but | :18:56. | :19:02. | |
it's not a failure of intelligence. In East Germany, more than 50% of | :19:03. | :19:06. | |
the population were informing on the other 48%. There is that balance | :19:07. | :19:17. | |
between over-securitising our lives and changing our normal life. There | :19:18. | :19:22. | |
were reports that Abedi had links with the Libyan Islamic fighting | :19:23. | :19:25. | |
group in the Manchester area and that they were in Whalley range, not | :19:26. | :19:29. | |
far from where he lived in the Manchester area. They had raised | :19:30. | :19:39. | |
funds and had even been convicted tangentially with the Didsbury | :19:40. | :19:41. | |
mosque. We don't know that, but that is what reports say. But this group | :19:42. | :19:50. | |
has been described in that area of Manchester as a hotbed for Islamic | :19:51. | :19:55. | |
State. People watching this will be surprised that we in this country | :19:56. | :20:03. | |
and don't seem to have done much about it. Exactly. Since the Islamic | :20:04. | :20:16. | |
State has started acting as has in Libya and has committed all these | :20:17. | :20:28. | |
terrorist attacks, I would hope it is being monitored. We have been | :20:29. | :20:31. | |
through this before and the French have been through it even more times | :20:32. | :20:33. | |
in recent years. Has anything changed as a result of this? Well, | :20:34. | :20:41. | |
we are stopping most attacks, but terrorism is not stopped by security | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
services. Individual acts of terrorism are, and they are very | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
important. We ultimately have to go through the community and the policy | :20:51. | :20:57. | |
of countering extremism generally. That is the long term, but the | :20:58. | :21:01. | |
resources go into physical security. But we say this every time, that we | :21:02. | :21:06. | |
have to do this after an attack, and yet 22 people were killed and almost | :21:07. | :21:15. | |
60 were badly injured in Manchester again. It's about the hardest policy | :21:16. | :21:21. | |
area you can have. It's about education, community cohesion and | :21:22. | :21:23. | |
determined people in other countries planning attacks against us. No | :21:24. | :21:28. | |
country has found an answer to this. More importantly, it's a dynamic | :21:29. | :21:32. | |
problem. The mobilisation of people going to Syria and Libya were | :21:33. | :21:37. | |
different people to the 2000 we were looking at a decade ago from | :21:38. | :21:41. | |
Al-Qaeda. Some are the same, but it is a very traumatic problem, also | :21:42. | :21:47. | |
for countries like France. Professor, thank you. | :21:48. | :21:49. | |
Leaders around the world have been quick to declare solidarity | :21:50. | :21:52. | |
Here's Ellie with a summary of how the world responded. | :21:53. | :21:59. | |
In Paris, the lights turned off as a mark of respect. In New York, the | :22:00. | :22:07. | |
Empire State Building, a skyline dimmed. And in Dubai, Geneva, Zagreb | :22:08. | :22:15. | |
and Belfast too. The international gestures matched with words of | :22:16. | :22:21. | |
solidarity from world leaders, and contempt for the terrorists. I will | :22:22. | :22:27. | |
call them, from now on, losers, because that's what they are. They | :22:28. | :22:32. | |
are losers. After phoning Theresa May, the French president walked to | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
the British Embassy to sign a book of condolence. In Berlin, Chancellor | :22:38. | :22:41. | |
Merkel said Germany stood shoulder to shoulder with Britain. Other | :22:42. | :22:47. | |
world leaders took to social media to send their support to Britain, | :22:48. | :22:52. | |
while President Putin sent a telegram to the Prime Minister, | :22:53. | :22:54. | |
offering to increase counterterrorism cooperation. Like | :22:55. | :23:00. | |
many European capitals, the EU flew its flags at half-mast in Brussels. | :23:01. | :23:04. | |
And in Australia, Prime Minister Turnbull captured the mood of many. | :23:05. | :23:08. | |
This is a direct and brutal attack on young people everywhere on | :23:09. | :23:16. | |
freedom everywhere. Ariana Grande, the American singer whose concert it | :23:17. | :23:20. | |
was in Manchester has flown home, but not yet cancelled her London | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
tour dates later this week. Meanwhile, many other musicians | :23:25. | :23:27. | |
tweeted their thoughts, including Rihanna, who said Manchester was | :23:28. | :23:31. | |
close to her heart and suggested that the attack could have happened | :23:32. | :23:35. | |
that one of her concerts. And the Oasis singer and celebrated | :23:36. | :23:37. | |
Mancunian Liam Gallagher, who tweeted that he sent Northern Lights | :23:38. | :23:40. | |
to all the families involved. The world of sport paid -- he said | :23:41. | :23:46. | |
Lenovo and liked the families involved. Ahead of the Europa League | :23:47. | :23:55. | |
match tonight, David Beckham captured the mood with this tweet. | :23:56. | :24:06. | |
Police in Manchester say three more arrests have been made | :24:07. | :24:09. | |
One man detained yesterday is still in custody. | :24:10. | :24:12. | |
Catriona Renton is our correspondent outside | :24:13. | :24:13. | |
What can you tell us about the three arrests this morning? There have | :24:14. | :24:29. | |
been a number of developments. The three men who were arrested this | :24:30. | :24:33. | |
morning were arrested in South Manchester. Police had been issued | :24:34. | :24:38. | |
with warrants. We understand that they were arrested in connection | :24:39. | :24:44. | |
with this investigation. Another development was the 23-year-old man | :24:45. | :24:47. | |
who was arrested yesterday. He is the brother of 22-year-old Salman | :24:48. | :24:53. | |
Abedi, who of course was the bomber that was identified yesterday. Let | :24:54. | :24:57. | |
me bring you another statement from Greater Manchester Police which has | :24:58. | :25:01. | |
come in in the last half-hour. They are confident that they know who all | :25:02. | :25:04. | |
of the people are who sadly lost their lives at the Manchester Arena. | :25:05. | :25:08. | |
They say they have made contact with all of the families, who are being | :25:09. | :25:13. | |
supported by specialist officers. They say that due to the number of | :25:14. | :25:19. | |
victim postmortems that are to take four to five days, they will then be | :25:20. | :25:23. | |
in a position, with the guidance of the coroner, to formally named the | :25:24. | :25:30. | |
victims. This investigation is very fast moving. We have seen the | :25:31. | :25:32. | |
developments we have already talked about. Home Secretary Amber Rudd | :25:33. | :25:39. | |
said this morning that Salman Abedi was known to intelligence services | :25:40. | :25:43. | |
up to a point. That of course leaves a big question as to what extent he | :25:44. | :25:49. | |
was known to intelligence services. We understand that he had recently | :25:50. | :25:52. | |
come back from Libya. He would have had his passport checked by security | :25:53. | :25:58. | |
services when he came back into the UK. We have also heard that he may | :25:59. | :26:03. | |
have been known to American intelligence services also. The | :26:04. | :26:09. | |
central point of the investigation now is, was Salman Abedi acting | :26:10. | :26:16. | |
alone? Their priority is to find out who if anyone else was involved. | :26:17. | :26:24. | |
They need to know where the bomb was made, if there were other people | :26:25. | :26:28. | |
involved, and the making of the bomb, the armouring of the bomb and | :26:29. | :26:32. | |
if there were others who were encouraging Salman Abedi and | :26:33. | :26:39. | |
supporting him for he carried out a horrific attack on Monday night. The | :26:40. | :26:44. | |
police investigation here is fast-moving, the police working hard | :26:45. | :26:48. | |
with the counterterrorism network. They have also thanked the people of | :26:49. | :26:53. | |
Manchester for their strength and resilience over the past few days. | :26:54. | :26:58. | |
They say they will need to carry on with this strength and resilience | :26:59. | :27:01. | |
while they ensure that they can make this city safe once again. Catriona | :27:02. | :27:07. | |
Renton outside the Manchester police building, thank you. | :27:08. | :27:09. | |
And we're joined now by Lucy Powell, who was an MP in Manchester. | :27:10. | :27:17. | |
In your knowledge, how serious is the problem of Islamist | :27:18. | :27:27. | |
radicalisation in Manchester? Am not sure this is the right moment to go | :27:28. | :27:31. | |
into that, because I don't even want to ascribe what has happened to the | :27:32. | :27:40. | |
Islamic faith. Most of my constituents who are Muslim would | :27:41. | :27:43. | |
absolutely disassociated themselves from any act of violence or terror | :27:44. | :27:52. | |
like this. But I am not ascribing it to them. I did not say Islam, I said | :27:53. | :27:59. | |
Islamist, which is different. We have learned that there are areas | :28:00. | :28:03. | |
regarded as hotbeds of Islamic State in the Manchester area. Were you | :28:04. | :28:07. | |
aware of that? Is that common knowledge in the city? I think | :28:08. | :28:17. | |
sometimes, these things are given labels. There was a media report | :28:18. | :28:23. | |
recently about Moss side, an area I represent, as though that was | :28:24. | :28:25. | |
somehow a hotbed of Islamic extremists. Actually, most of the | :28:26. | :28:30. | |
evidence that was used in the article did not stack up because | :28:31. | :28:36. | |
people were from far and wide across the Greater Manchester area. The | :28:37. | :28:41. | |
people they were using to create that story were not there at the | :28:42. | :28:47. | |
same time as one another. So we have to be careful, especially in these | :28:48. | :28:53. | |
times, to start pitting community against community in saying that | :28:54. | :28:58. | |
certain areas or certain people or certain communities are somehow | :28:59. | :29:02. | |
responsible when they are not. These are the acts of deranged individuals | :29:03. | :29:08. | |
who have, in my eyes, nothing to do with humanity. How anyone is a human | :29:09. | :29:15. | |
being could carry out these acts more I find incomprehensible. So | :29:16. | :29:21. | |
it's really important, in the face of these atrocities in this horrific | :29:22. | :29:25. | |
terror attack in Manchester, that we don't start pointing the finger in | :29:26. | :29:32. | |
the wrong place. I understand that. None of the questions I am asking | :29:33. | :29:35. | |
you involve pointing the finger at anybody. They are trying to get to | :29:36. | :29:39. | |
the bottom of how this happened and who was behind it. Is there a | :29:40. | :29:46. | |
realisation, that Abedi was not acting alone, that there is a group | :29:47. | :29:52. | |
of people who helped him to do this, therefore making the situation all | :29:53. | :29:57. | |
the more dangerous? Well, that is what we are hearing. I am not in a | :29:58. | :30:01. | |
position to provide a commentary, nor would I provide a running | :30:02. | :30:05. | |
commentary on the operation that is under way and try to make sure that | :30:06. | :30:13. | |
everybody associated with this heinous crime is brought to justice. | :30:14. | :30:18. | |
Of course, when somebody carries out and act like this, in a sense, it | :30:19. | :30:23. | |
does break open that network that has hitherto remained under the | :30:24. | :30:32. | |
radar of the security services. So inevitably, I hope that they close | :30:33. | :30:35. | |
all the associates down completely and identify them all and make sure | :30:36. | :30:40. | |
they are brought to justice. But it is an ongoing investigation. I do | :30:41. | :30:45. | |
not recognise the description of areas of Manchester being hotbeds of | :30:46. | :30:49. | |
radicalisation. Police have named 22-year-old | :30:50. | :30:56. | |
Salman Ramadan Abedi as the person suspected of carrying out | :30:57. | :31:08. | |
the suicide attack at So what do we know about him and how | :31:09. | :31:10. | |
he came to be radicalised? We're joined now by our Security | :31:11. | :31:21. | |
Correspondent, Gordon Corera. We know that he was a Manchester United | :31:22. | :31:25. | |
supporter, new like cricket, smoked cannabis, made it to Salford | :31:26. | :31:28. | |
University, the son of Libyan parents who fled Colonel Gaddafi, he | :31:29. | :31:34. | |
was not from a deprived background, his father had fled the Gaddafi | :31:35. | :31:37. | |
regime, at one stage, but is now back in Tripoli. What else... What | :31:38. | :31:44. | |
else, as we try to put together a picture of the suicide bomber, what | :31:45. | :31:49. | |
else do we know? It is the moment of radicalisation which investigators | :31:50. | :31:51. | |
are looking for, trying to understand when it took place, looks | :31:52. | :31:55. | |
like a few years ago he was a relatively normal individual, | :31:56. | :32:01. | |
football supporting and so on. But associate, people in the area, have | :32:02. | :32:05. | |
said that more recently, they did notice some kind of change in | :32:06. | :32:06. | |
behaviour. Some potential signs of what is | :32:07. | :32:14. | |
looking certain to be radicalisation, the issue of travel | :32:15. | :32:18. | |
is one that security services are looking at closely, the possibility | :32:19. | :32:21. | |
he had been in Libya recently, was that a place in which he was | :32:22. | :32:25. | |
radicalised, some possible reports of other travel as well, that will | :32:26. | :32:30. | |
be something they will be trying to understand, was a radicalised there, | :32:31. | :32:33. | |
was he tasked there, was he given training abroad, what kind of travel | :32:34. | :32:37. | |
may there have been, also reports from France that French officials | :32:38. | :32:41. | |
think he may have gone to Syria. Some of this is not confirmed, but | :32:42. | :32:45. | |
that is going to be a very key line of enquiry. What about this group, | :32:46. | :32:54. | |
the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which existed in Libya to oppose | :32:55. | :32:59. | |
Colonel Gaddafi, although Gaddafi's security services closed it down and | :33:00. | :33:03. | |
took out and killed a lot of the leaders of it. There seems to be a | :33:04. | :33:08. | |
remnant of it in the Manchester area, he may have had a connection, | :33:09. | :33:14. | |
anything on that? The story of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is | :33:15. | :33:16. | |
very interesting when it comes to iteration ship with Britain because | :33:17. | :33:20. | |
it was a group which was Islamist in outlook but was also anti-Gaddafi | :33:21. | :33:24. | |
and if you look at the history, in the 90s, when Britain was very | :33:25. | :33:30. | |
anti-Gaddafi, those people found a home in Britain, and they tended to | :33:31. | :33:38. | |
be able to operate here, and then after 2003 there was the deal with | :33:39. | :33:41. | |
Colonel Gaddafi and Britain and the Libyan regime became more friendly | :33:42. | :33:45. | |
and then there was more pressure on the LIFG in Britain. Very | :33:46. | :33:49. | |
interesting history of the last 20, 30 years, in which the Britain | :33:50. | :33:53. | |
intelligence services and the state 's attitude to LIFG has mirrored how | :33:54. | :33:59. | |
friendly or not we were with the regime of Colonel Gaddafi, which | :34:00. | :34:04. | |
they were fighting and opposing. I don't think we have yet heard from | :34:05. | :34:12. | |
the father, he was born in 1965, very strict Muslim, some reports say | :34:13. | :34:18. | |
that he was very anti-jihadi. Some reports that he may have been | :34:19. | :34:21. | |
involved with internal security in Libya at one stage but then broke | :34:22. | :34:26. | |
with Tripoli in 1991, may have been in Saudi Arabia for a while, then | :34:27. | :34:32. | |
went to London in 1992, then Manchester, and had four children, | :34:33. | :34:37. | |
but then went back to Tripoli in 2008, before the regime change. | :34:38. | :34:42. | |
Interesting timing, a lot of people from LIFG and related groups went | :34:43. | :34:47. | |
back after regime change. There were some deals done with former | :34:48. | :34:51. | |
opponents under Colonel Gaddafi in that period. That looks quite | :34:52. | :34:58. | |
unusual. Now, you have a lot of former anti-Gaddafi forces and | :34:59. | :35:02. | |
individuals who were based, back in Libya, and so it is a very | :35:03. | :35:07. | |
complicated mix, the Libyan opposition, full of different groups | :35:08. | :35:11. | |
and individuals, different factions who have been fighting each other in | :35:12. | :35:15. | |
recent months and years, and that will complicate the intelligence and | :35:16. | :35:20. | |
security gathering business for British intelligence, to try to | :35:21. | :35:23. | |
establish what the links are and who knew what. A final question, more | :35:24. | :35:29. | |
generally, where do you see the state of the investigation so far, | :35:30. | :35:35. | |
into Salman Abedi and those who may well have helped him? The crucial | :35:36. | :35:39. | |
issue is where was the bomb instructed and by who, general view | :35:40. | :35:44. | |
is that it was not a straightforward device, may have required assistance | :35:45. | :35:48. | |
from others, and they want to know was there a bomb factory in the UK, | :35:49. | :35:52. | |
was there a bomb maker in the UK, did it take place overseas. That is | :35:53. | :35:58. | |
vital to understand where the residual threat lies and how serious | :35:59. | :36:07. | |
it might be in the UK. That is why the threat level has gone up too | :36:08. | :36:08. | |
critical. Thank you for joining us. I'm joined now by the former | :36:09. | :36:18. | |
Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, who helped run the Prevent strategy | :36:19. | :36:21. | |
under Labour and Douglas Murray, associate director of | :36:22. | :36:23. | |
the Henry Jackson Society, had the politicians say what they | :36:24. | :36:31. | |
say after a terrible atrocity like this happens, and we have stepped up | :36:32. | :36:36. | |
security and what is said is well said and well meant, too, but does | :36:37. | :36:41. | |
anything, in the end, ever change? Inevitable that in an event, and | :36:42. | :36:45. | |
after an event like this, people concentrate on the here and now, | :36:46. | :36:48. | |
this operation to bring people to justice and that is to be expected, | :36:49. | :36:52. | |
I want us to take a step back and think about what is it that is going | :36:53. | :36:57. | |
on in our country and around the world, where we have a supply chain | :36:58. | :37:02. | |
of people coming through who are radicalised and not just radicalised | :37:03. | :37:06. | |
but prepared to kill and kill themselves in the process. 7/7, that | :37:07. | :37:10. | |
was the first time we had experienced that in this country, a | :37:11. | :37:14. | |
sense of national shock that three young men brought up and educated in | :37:15. | :37:17. | |
the British education system could set out on a murderous bombing | :37:18. | :37:23. | |
mission, and it has happened again. Ten years later. A decade on. It has | :37:24. | :37:27. | |
happened around the world, France, Spain, Belgium. We have done some | :37:28. | :37:34. | |
good work in bringing communities together, the channel programme, | :37:35. | :37:37. | |
with direct the lies agent but we have not tackled this ideology. I | :37:38. | :37:41. | |
went to see David Cameron Mackay boss task force that we set up, | :37:42. | :37:44. | |
together with a Conservative colleague on a cross-party basis, | :37:45. | :37:48. | |
and gave them a paper, it was about saying, then we take part of this | :37:49. | :37:53. | |
ideology of hating the West, having a caliphate and a theocracy around | :37:54. | :37:56. | |
the world, and being prepared to murder on the basis that if you die, | :37:57. | :38:02. | |
you are going to paradise. It is a threadbare, worthless ideology, we | :38:03. | :38:06. | |
tackle fascism, Nazism, we need the same determination to be able to | :38:07. | :38:10. | |
tackle this ideology. Then we might be getting somewhere. At the moment, | :38:11. | :38:14. | |
I do not think we are marshalling our resources in the way we ought to | :38:15. | :38:17. | |
be, it is an existing Schalke wrecked. We need to meet it. In the | :38:18. | :38:23. | |
end, we only defeated Nazism because of total war. It was not the idea, | :38:24. | :38:30. | |
it was the total war that won. And of course I am not advocating that. | :38:31. | :38:42. | |
-- it is an existing problem. We do not want to believe what they say, | :38:43. | :38:45. | |
after all these years we seem to be in this strange cycle, Hazel quite | :38:46. | :38:49. | |
rightly says, not preparing to fight this ideology but politicians, from | :38:50. | :38:54. | |
all parties, are very reluctant to even name the ideology in question. | :38:55. | :38:57. | |
There is a concerted effort after an attack like that on Monday night, to | :38:58. | :39:05. | |
not say anything that would compel anybody to do something. Last night, | :39:06. | :39:12. | |
-- last month, after the Westminster terror attacks, just down the road | :39:13. | :39:15. | |
from here, the Dean of Westminster on behalf of this nation stood up at | :39:16. | :39:19. | |
the pulpit and said, we may never know what may drive somebody to do | :39:20. | :39:23. | |
this... Sorry, we do know! We know why somebody like Khalid Masood did | :39:24. | :39:28. | |
what he did outside the Houses of Parliament, we know why somebody | :39:29. | :39:32. | |
like this young man did what he did, they keep telling us! We just don't | :39:33. | :39:38. | |
want to listen. Is it, is it the Islamist ideology? Yes... Don't | :39:39. | :39:43. | |
recognise that? No, take Italy we do not want to recognise where it comes | :39:44. | :39:48. | |
from. Wethers it come from? Religion, the worst possible | :39:49. | :39:51. | |
interpretation of the religion, it comes from it, we are very reluctant | :39:52. | :39:56. | |
to face up to date. -- where does it come from. Underneath all this there | :39:57. | :40:00. | |
is something else happening, politicians are talking about | :40:01. | :40:03. | |
technical issues to do with security, but the public in Britain | :40:04. | :40:07. | |
and the public in Europe are thinking totally different things, | :40:08. | :40:09. | |
they are thinking for instance, how can it be that we may bring a couple | :40:10. | :40:14. | |
of Libyans who may have suffered under Colonel Gaddafi into this | :40:15. | :40:18. | |
country as asylum seekers, perhaps they are pro-Britain, perhaps the | :40:19. | :40:22. | |
most pro-Britain ever, but maybe their child will turn up to a pop | :40:23. | :40:25. | |
concert one night and blow up a bunch of women and children... How | :40:26. | :40:30. | |
can you ever know that? What does the policy followed, that we should | :40:31. | :40:34. | |
not have let them in? The policy issue is, the public are wondering | :40:35. | :40:39. | |
whether this whole idea of mass migration, of borderless world and | :40:40. | :40:43. | |
all of these things is such a good idea, publics are committed to a | :40:44. | :40:45. | |
different conclusion to politicians, it is right we have security | :40:46. | :40:49. | |
questions but as a country we should also be thinking about the deeper | :40:50. | :40:53. | |
underlying things. I may so, when Hazel says, we have two tackle this | :40:54. | :40:58. | |
underlying ideology and fight it, I agree, but we must appropriately | :40:59. | :41:07. | |
designate the problem. Hazel, we still have... You need to let Hazel | :41:08. | :41:11. | |
Blears speak. With Robert share some of the analysis but I am a practical | :41:12. | :41:14. | |
person, what I set out to do with prevent was not just described the | :41:15. | :41:19. | |
problem, and I agree, it needs to be named. -- Prevent. The overwhelming | :41:20. | :41:25. | |
majority of Muslim people are... Are opposed to this, we need to have a | :41:26. | :41:29. | |
series of practical programmes, court to have education, not just | :41:30. | :41:31. | |
the Muslim community but other faiths as well, to understand this, | :41:32. | :41:36. | |
to have critical thinking so that you can challenge the ideas of the | :41:37. | :41:39. | |
extremists, because they are very simple and actually very stupid as | :41:40. | :41:46. | |
well. If we have the arguments to use... Douglas, it is all very well | :41:47. | :41:50. | |
to have rhetoric, rhetoric can inflame the situation, you need a | :41:51. | :41:53. | |
careful measured view with a proper programme and properly resourced. | :41:54. | :41:59. | |
This programme, the Prevent programme, prime example, there has | :42:00. | :42:03. | |
been all criticism, but what is one of the unanimous issues with | :42:04. | :42:07. | |
Prevent, almost total pushback against the policy from Day 1 from | :42:08. | :42:12. | |
self appointed leadership of the Muslim community. That is one of the | :42:13. | :42:15. | |
overwhelming things at prevent, people say, I have a problem with | :42:16. | :42:20. | |
this bit, that bit, no, most people you hear from within the Muslim | :42:21. | :42:23. | |
communities, terrific examples of people, they are against any policy, | :42:24. | :42:30. | |
not a bit of it, they don't want any of it. I disagree. Let Hazel Blears | :42:31. | :42:35. | |
speak. I disagree with you again, what you are saying is, the people | :42:36. | :42:40. | |
who are anti-prevent the majority voice coming you may say that they | :42:41. | :42:43. | |
are the majority but they are not, there is a lot of decent people in | :42:44. | :42:47. | |
the community, young people. I'm talking about within the leadership. | :42:48. | :42:50. | |
They have become stars and when you get the opportunity of a leadership | :42:51. | :42:56. | |
platform, they are amazing, women, in the same place, you cannot paint | :42:57. | :43:01. | |
everybody. I did not do that. You have been listening to this, it is | :43:02. | :43:04. | |
quite hard to see what the policy responses. Your job, you have to | :43:05. | :43:10. | |
pick up the pieces from the failure of a political strategy, which, | :43:11. | :43:16. | |
which has led to terrorism, but I am not quite sure... What should we be | :43:17. | :43:20. | |
doing? What should we be doing to stop it being your problem? What we | :43:21. | :43:26. | |
have seen across Europe, and if you think back to the attackers from | :43:27. | :43:30. | |
Paris, certainly one of them was able to go back to his location in | :43:31. | :43:35. | |
Ulamek, 100 metres from where he was born and brought up, and hide from | :43:36. | :43:42. | |
the police. -- Meulen beak. There is such a disconnect between the | :43:43. | :43:46. | |
community and the police force, certainly in that country, what we | :43:47. | :43:51. | |
have seen today is something going on not quite the same but along | :43:52. | :43:57. | |
those lines in Manchester, and we need to break down communities that | :43:58. | :44:02. | |
see themselves as insular and not linked into the rest of the state. | :44:03. | :44:07. | |
-- Molenbeek. You said education, but Salman Abedi was educated, he | :44:08. | :44:12. | |
went to Salford University, studying business management, he was not some | :44:13. | :44:16. | |
illiterate whose mind had been warped... His mind was warped. Not | :44:17. | :44:23. | |
because he wasn't educated. When I talk about education I mean | :44:24. | :44:27. | |
education from primary school together to understand that this | :44:28. | :44:32. | |
kind of extremism is not something that represents your faith, not | :44:33. | :44:36. | |
something you want to be involved with, so you can be educated to a | :44:37. | :44:39. | |
top-level but you can still be driven by this ideology. Politicians | :44:40. | :44:44. | |
have this great faith in education, at their time, the Germans were the | :44:45. | :44:50. | |
best educated people in the world, they ended up with Adolf Hitler. | :44:51. | :44:53. | |
Indeed. That shows you the strength of an ideology. The importance of | :44:54. | :44:58. | |
countering it as well but you cannot count it if you simply think that it | :44:59. | :45:03. | |
is, that it is solvable by Hazel Blears or by Amber Rudd or anybody | :45:04. | :45:07. | |
else coming up with a counter at the ology, these people believe they are | :45:08. | :45:11. | |
acting in the name of their God, -- counter ideology. They may not | :45:12. | :45:14. | |
listen to a British minister. We need to have a line to them that | :45:15. | :45:18. | |
breaks to the heart of their warped ideology. What does that mean? What | :45:19. | :45:25. | |
does it mean? Douglas, what is the policy response? Not the metaphor. | :45:26. | :45:31. | |
The first thing is, politicians and others have too acknowledged that | :45:32. | :45:34. | |
when these things happen, instead of learning from them," coming | :45:35. | :45:37. | |
together" and all of this, we did not want this to happen, we never | :45:38. | :45:42. | |
wanted to get to this place where we had people, including first and | :45:43. | :45:44. | |
second generation immigrants in this country blowing people up at pop | :45:45. | :45:48. | |
concerts. There is no single way to deal with it but one of the worst | :45:49. | :45:51. | |
ways to deal with it is when people like Andy Burnham, unfortunately, | :45:52. | :45:54. | |
now the mayor of Manchester, campaigned not only to prevent | :45:55. | :45:59. | |
Prevent -- scrap Prevent but not even suggesting something to go in | :46:00. | :46:06. | |
its place, the current strategy has all sorts of flaws but it is the | :46:07. | :46:09. | |
best and we need some kind of strategy, preferable to no strategy | :46:10. | :46:11. | |
at all. On that we are agreed. The Manchester attack happened | :46:12. | :46:18. | |
four years to the day since Fusilier Lee Rigby | :46:19. | :46:20. | |
was murdered by two extremists near his barracks in Woolwich, | :46:21. | :46:22. | |
south-east London. And the last two and a half years | :46:23. | :46:24. | |
has seen yet more attacks, as the so-called Islamic State has | :46:25. | :46:27. | |
encouraged its supporters to launch Back in January 2015 a pair | :46:28. | :46:30. | |
of masked men killed 12 people at the office of the satirical | :46:31. | :46:34. | |
magazine Charlie Hebdo, before killing five other people | :46:35. | :46:36. | |
in and around Paris. Later that year, | :46:37. | :46:41. | |
Paris was hit again. This time a group of a gunmen | :46:42. | :46:45. | |
and suicide bombers attacked the Bataclan concert hall and other | :46:46. | :46:47. | |
sites around the city, The next month, a lone | :46:48. | :46:50. | |
attacker inspired by Islamic State attempted to behead | :46:51. | :46:54. | |
a passenger in the ticket hall of Leytonstone tube | :46:55. | :46:57. | |
station in east London. Then, | :46:58. | :47:03. | |
in March 2016, Brussels was hit airport and one at a metro station | :47:04. | :47:04. | |
near EU institutions. In July, | :47:05. | :47:09. | |
as France celebrated Bastille Day, a truck mowed through a crowd | :47:10. | :47:15. | |
of people on the Nice seafront. In December, a similar | :47:16. | :47:18. | |
attack saw a lorry plough into a crowd of people | :47:19. | :47:32. | |
at a Berlin Christmas market. Then in March, five people | :47:33. | :47:34. | |
were murdered when Khalid Masood launched a car and knife attack | :47:35. | :47:47. | |
here in Westminster. a man | :47:48. | :47:49. | |
carrying knives near parliament police and arrested on suspicion | :47:50. | :47:52. | |
of terrorism offences. I joined now by Charlie Winther from | :47:53. | :48:12. | |
the international centre for counterterrorism and Adam Deen from | :48:13. | :48:18. | |
the Quilliam Foundation. When you see that litany of appalling | :48:19. | :48:21. | |
terrorist attacks and what we know about Abedi in Manchester, what is | :48:22. | :48:29. | |
the theme? What is the common denominator? We are seeing the | :48:30. | :48:33. | |
aftermath of two decades of Islamist ideology running a mock. We are | :48:34. | :48:40. | |
seeing the effects of their not being a strong counter narrative. | :48:41. | :48:46. | |
Young Muslims are taking on this ideology of Islam is and | :48:47. | :48:50. | |
understanding it to be an authentic representation and acting upon it, | :48:51. | :48:57. | |
thinking that they are serving God. But is the lack of a counter | :48:58. | :49:02. | |
narrative, Charlie winter, is that partly the fault of the Islamic | :49:03. | :49:05. | |
immunity, that they haven't built a strong enough counter to the | :49:06. | :49:13. | |
Islamist ideology? It is important to keep in mind that it is a tiny | :49:14. | :49:17. | |
minority of people that think any of this stuff is a good idea. But it | :49:18. | :49:24. | |
can cause so much pain. So the size of it, in a way, doesn't matter if | :49:25. | :49:29. | |
you can kill 22 innocent people at a pop concert. Of course it doesn't. | :49:30. | :49:33. | |
Let's not detract from the scale of the atrocity. But at the same time, | :49:34. | :49:39. | |
when you are looking for a better way to counter this, we need to | :49:40. | :49:42. | |
recognise that it is a small number of people. But what do we do? What | :49:43. | :49:53. | |
I'm saying is that we can look to the Muslim community and ask them to | :49:54. | :49:56. | |
do more. The fact of the matter is that people like Abedi don't listen, | :49:57. | :50:01. | |
however. There is only so far you can go with that line. Do you think | :50:02. | :50:05. | |
that is because there hasn't been a strong enough challenge to it? Isis | :50:06. | :50:10. | |
's fringe, but the problem is that the Muslim community shares a broad | :50:11. | :50:15. | |
spectrum of beliefs with the likes of Isis. They share? They share it. | :50:16. | :50:21. | |
And that is something we need to have a candid discussion about. | :50:22. | :50:28. | |
Often, these discussions of extremism and the medieval theology | :50:29. | :50:34. | |
that supports these acts, it has almost been muted. It is time to | :50:35. | :50:38. | |
have an honest discussion. Let me be clear. You are saying there are | :50:39. | :50:43. | |
views within the mainstream Muslim community, which would be appalled | :50:44. | :50:47. | |
at what happened in Manchester, but they have something in common with | :50:48. | :50:51. | |
Islamic State ideology? Voids are there to be filled. If you're | :50:52. | :51:00. | |
Islamic education talk about an Islamic State, a utopian Islamic | :51:01. | :51:04. | |
State, talking about dividing the world in terms of good and evil, | :51:05. | :51:11. | |
these concepts can be exploited by Islamist extremists. That is what is | :51:12. | :51:17. | |
happening. Charlie Winter? I would be wary of saying there is a large | :51:18. | :51:26. | |
number of perhaps I misinterpreted it, but I think the vast majority of | :51:27. | :51:33. | |
people would be adamant in saying that they have no part in believing | :51:34. | :51:41. | |
anything that the Islamic State does. Whether that is contradicted | :51:42. | :51:48. | |
by a belief in the caliphate ultimately being an important part | :51:49. | :51:51. | |
of Islam is a different thing. But in this context, that is important. | :51:52. | :51:58. | |
But is the Muslim community in general, because in the end, they | :51:59. | :52:04. | |
are the best people to do it on the well-known principle that only Nixon | :52:05. | :52:07. | |
could go to China, the best people to do this is the Muslim community | :52:08. | :52:11. | |
itself, which oppose what is going on. Are they doing enough to make | :52:12. | :52:18. | |
sure that the kind of messages that Abedi was clearly getting to cause | :52:19. | :52:21. | |
him to carry this out are not reaching people like him? Well, it | :52:22. | :52:29. | |
is limited, what they can do. But are they doing all they can do? An | :52:30. | :52:36. | |
imam in Manchester who is moderate or mainstream will not be able to | :52:37. | :52:40. | |
resonate with someone like Abedi. This is a world where a lot of the | :52:41. | :52:44. | |
radical activity that used to happen in so-called radical mosques can | :52:45. | :52:53. | |
happen easily on social media. 99% of Muslims plus condemn Isis. That | :52:54. | :52:58. | |
is not the challenge. The challenge is to take on the ideas that give | :52:59. | :53:03. | |
oxygen to extremist narratives. In terms of mosques and imams, it is | :53:04. | :53:06. | |
not so much what they are saying or doing, it is what they are not | :53:07. | :53:12. | |
saying. We need to inculcate values of human rights, democracy and | :53:13. | :53:17. | |
freedom in young Muslim minds so that they can be inoculated from | :53:18. | :53:24. | |
extremist narratives. But even if we were to get this right, and I get | :53:25. | :53:27. | |
the sense that we are a long way from getting it right, we are | :53:28. | :53:32. | |
closing the stable door after the horse has bolted? We have learned | :53:33. | :53:36. | |
that Abedi was in Libya. We think he might have been in Syria as well. We | :53:37. | :53:43. | |
are told about 350 Islamic fighters who had been in Syria or Islamic | :53:44. | :53:47. | |
State areas are back in the Manchester area. They have been | :53:48. | :53:50. | |
radicalised. It is too late for them. And the two multiplying | :53:51. | :53:56. | |
factors we need to remember is the ease of travel, which we have all | :53:57. | :54:00. | |
got now, and the ease of communication, which means the very | :54:01. | :54:07. | |
small percentage of the radicals, the idiots, can communicate and talk | :54:08. | :54:10. | |
to each other and effectively multiply what they do. And of | :54:11. | :54:15. | |
course, one terrorist attack is a huge issue across the world. And | :54:16. | :54:21. | |
everyone now sees it. And individuals can talk to each other | :54:22. | :54:25. | |
on the other side of the world, which was never possible even a | :54:26. | :54:29. | |
generation ago. Is it going to get worse before it gets better? I think | :54:30. | :54:35. | |
so. I think Pandora's box has opened. We will leave it there. | :54:36. | :54:48. | |
As we have said, political campaigning has been resumed in the | :54:49. | :54:52. | |
wake of the Manchester attack, but the Ukip leader Paul Nuttall has | :54:53. | :54:54. | |
said he will resume tomorrow. We don't know what the main parties | :54:55. | :54:58. | |
will do. Norman Smith joins us from Downing Street. | :54:59. | :55:02. | |
Is there any sign of a restart of the campaign? The only sign of it is | :55:03. | :55:10. | |
Ukip going solo. They will start campaigning tomorrow with the launch | :55:11. | :55:15. | |
of their manifesto on the grounds, says their leader Paul Nuttall, that | :55:16. | :55:19. | |
not to do so would be a victory for the terrorists, that democracy | :55:20. | :55:27. | |
cannot be cowed by a terrorist act. There will have been two days of | :55:28. | :55:31. | |
non-campaigning as a mark of respect and tomorrow is an appropriate time | :55:32. | :55:35. | |
to start. I think they will be doing so on their own. I detect no | :55:36. | :55:39. | |
inclination from any of the other main parties to join them. The | :55:40. | :55:44. | |
language from Government is that they are talking about several more | :55:45. | :55:49. | |
days before campaigning resumes. I presume that means probably | :55:50. | :55:54. | |
stretching into the weekend. Who knows, maybe even beyond the Bank | :55:55. | :55:59. | |
Holiday Monday. The SNP are also beginning to calculate that their | :56:00. | :56:03. | |
manifesto may have to wait for next week. In terms of labour, they would | :56:04. | :56:09. | |
like to get on with it because they feel they were building up a degree | :56:10. | :56:13. | |
of momentum and that if there is any politics around this, it probably | :56:14. | :56:19. | |
plays more to the advantage of the government. That said, I don't think | :56:20. | :56:22. | |
they will break ranks and suddenly start campaigning. My expectation is | :56:23. | :56:27. | |
that Ukip will have their launch tomorrow, which will be hugely | :56:28. | :56:30. | |
controversial and most of the questions will not be about their | :56:31. | :56:33. | |
manifesto, but about whether it is appropriate to restart the campaign | :56:34. | :56:39. | |
when you have still got children in hospital with very serious injuries. | :56:40. | :56:43. | |
And we have a life counterterrorism operation goes on and maybe a | :56:44. | :56:50. | |
continuing terrorist threat. It sounds like the campaign proper may | :56:51. | :56:55. | |
not begin again until Tuesday, which would mean in the middle of a | :56:56. | :56:59. | |
general election, a whole week of campaigning is lost because of what | :57:00. | :57:04. | |
happened in Manchester. That is a possibility. I would caution, | :57:05. | :57:11. | |
though, that I understand there has been no formal decision within | :57:12. | :57:14. | |
government about exactly when to restart. That is partly because of | :57:15. | :57:21. | |
the nature of the counterterrorism operation, the fact that the risk | :57:22. | :57:24. | |
has now been raised to critical. Troops are going to be deployed. | :57:25. | :57:29. | |
There is clearly a nervousness and anxiety that this man, Salman Abedi, | :57:30. | :57:33. | |
had associates and was maybe part of a network. In other words, there is | :57:34. | :57:39. | |
a potential life threat. I think any Prime Minister would be very wary | :57:40. | :57:42. | |
about returning to an election campaign in that context. There is | :57:43. | :57:48. | |
also a respect factor and how the public would react to politicians | :57:49. | :57:56. | |
shouting the odds at each other if people in danger of losing their | :57:57. | :58:00. | |
lives and still have children in hospital. Indeed. Thank you for | :58:01. | :58:09. | |
that. That is a problem. The names of those who lost their lives are | :58:10. | :58:13. | |
still coming out. There are heartbreaking pictures of youngsters | :58:14. | :58:22. | |
just starting out in life. Given the abilities of our security services, | :58:23. | :58:24. | |
I would think we will see breakthroughs in the next 48 to 72 | :58:25. | :58:33. | |
hours. I really hope so. We are at the beginning of this terrorist | :58:34. | :58:38. | |
incident, I believe. We have seen in other terrorist incidents, lots of | :58:39. | :58:43. | |
people being arrested in flats and bombs going off. So it could happen | :58:44. | :58:46. | |
again. Chris, thank you very much. The one o'clock news is starting | :58:47. | :58:49. | |
over on BBC One now. We've made great strides | :58:50. | :58:54. | |
tackling HIV. Imagine if we could | :58:55. | :59:04. | |
create a movement | :59:05. | :59:07. |