UK police hunt Manchester bomber’s network, angered by U.S. leaks. Sharing information on Manchester attack was stopped – UPDATE

Police scrambled to close down a network around the Manchester suicide bomber with arrests in Britain and Tripoli on Wednesday, as details about the investigation were leaked to U.S. media, infuriating authorities who fear a second attack is imminent.

British-born Salman Abedi, 22, who was known to security services, killed 22 people at a concert venue packed with children on Monday.

UPDATE: The most senior U.S. diplomat in Britain condemned media leaks of an investigation into a suicide bomb which killed 22 people in Manchester, saying the U.S. government would take action to identify those responsible.

“These leaks were reprehensible, deeply distressing. We unequivocally condemn them,” Lewis Lukens, U.S. charge d’affaires in London and acting ambassador to Britain, said on BBC radio on Thursday.

“The United States government is launching an investigation into these leaks and will take appropriate action once we identify the source of the leaks,” he said. “We are determined to identify these leaks and to stop them.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday she would tell U.S. President Donald Trump that intelligence shared between their two countries had to remain secure.

UPDATE: The most senior U.S. diplomat in Britain condemned media leaks of an investigation into a suicide bomb which killed 22 people in Manchester, saying the U.S. government would take action to identify those responsible.

“These leaks were reprehensible, deeply distressing. We unequivocally condemn them,” Lewis Lukens, U.S. charge d’affaires in London and acting ambassador to Britain, said on BBC radio on Thursday.

“The United States government is launching an investigation into these leaks and will take appropriate action once we identify the source of the leaks,” he said. “We are determined to identify these leaks and to stop them.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday she would tell U.S. President Donald Trump that intelligence shared between their two countries had to remain secure.

UPDATE: British interior minister Amber Rudd is “confident” that leaks to the U.S. media about the investigation into a suicide bombing in Manchester which killed 22 people will end, a BBC reporter said on Thursday.

“Home Secretary says she’s ‘confident’ the leaks about Manchester attack to U.S. media will now end,” BBC political correspondent Vicki Young said on Twitter, referring to the interior minister by the commonly used title in Britain.

On Wednesday, Rudd said she found the leaks “irritating” and expressed confidence that they would end. However a new leak of photographs of the bomb site then prompted British police to stop sharing intelligence about the attack with U.S. counterparts.

UPDATE: British police have temporarily stopped sharing information with the United States on the suicide bombing in Manchester, a counter-terrorism source told Reuters.

The halt in sharing police information with the United States will remain in place until Britain gets assurances that no further leaks will occur, the source said.

“This is until such time as we have assurances that no further unauthorised disclosures will occur,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

UPDATE: British police have stopped sharing information on the suicide bombing in Manchester with the United States, the BBC reported on Thursday, because of fears that leaks in the U.S. media could hinder a hunt for a possible bomb-maker still at large.

If confirmed, the halt to the sharing investigative details with Britain’s most important defence and security ally would underscore the level of anger in Britain at leaks to the U.S. media of details about the police investigation.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will raise the issue with Donald Trump on Thursday, a government source told Reuters, after the New York Times published detailed pictures of the crime scene in Manchester where 22 people were killed.

The pictures included the remains of the suspected bomb, the rucksack worn by the suicide bomber and showed blood stains amid the wreckage.

The BBC said Manchester Police hoped to resume normal intelligence relationships soon but is currently furious.

After the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, police are hunting for accomplices whom they suspect helped Salman Abedi build the bomb that killed 22 people on Monday in a crowded concert hall in the northern English city of Manchester.

British police have arrested two more men in connection with the Manchester attack, taking the number of people in custody to eight, Greater Manchester police said.

Britain views the United States as its closest ally, and the two countries also share intelligence as part of the “Five Eyes” network which also includes Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

After Trump defended his decision to discuss intelligence with the Russians during a White House meeting, Prime Minister Theresa May said last week that Britain would continue to share intelligence with the United States.

UPDATE: Salman Abedi, the British suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a music venue in Manchester on Monday, was in Germany four days before the attack, Sky News reported on Thursday citing German intelligence.

Abedi had been in Dusseldorf, 300 miles (482.8 km) west of Berlin, Sky said. Investigators have said they believe he was part of a wider network of militants.

Authorities believe he had help in building the bomb, which photographs published by the New York Times showed was sophisticated and powerful, and that his accomplices could be ready to strike again.

Manchester police arrested five men and one woman on Wednesday, bringing the total held for questioning to seven, and searched multiple addresses in northern and central England.

Explosives were found at one site, the Independent reported, citing security service sources.

A source said British investigators were hunting for anyone who may have helped build the suicide bomb.

“I think it’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,” police chief Ian Hopkins said outside Manchester police headquarters.

“And as I’ve said, it continues at a pace. There’s extensive investigations going on and activity taking place across Greater Manchester as we speak.”

Abedi, who was born in Manchester in 1994 to Libyan parents, blew himself up on Monday night at the Manchester Arena indoor venue at the end of a concert by U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande attended by thousands of children and teenagers.

Police in Tripoli on Wednesday arrested Abedi’s younger brother and his father, who said he did not expect the attack.

“I spoke to [Salman Abedi] about five days ago … there was nothing wrong, everything was normal,” Ramadan Abedi told Reuters, moments before he was arrested.

A spokesman for the local counter-terrorism force said his brother Hashem Abedi was arrested on suspicion of links with Islamic State and was suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital.

The first arrest made in Britain on Tuesday was reported by British and U.S. media to be Abedi’s older brother.

Earlier, interior minister Amber Rudd said the bomber had recently returned from Libya. Her French counterpart Gerard Collomb said he had links with Islamic State and had probably visited Syria as well.

US Leaks

Authorities in Britain have become increasingly angered by U.S. leaks from the investigation, including the bomber’s name on Tuesday and the photos of blood-stained fragments from the bomb on Wednesday.

British police chiefs said the breaches of trust between security service partners were undermining their efforts.

Rudd had earlier scolded U.S. officials for leaking details.

“The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise, so it is irritating if it gets released from other sources, and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again,” she said.

But, hours after the warning, the New York Times published the detailed photographs.

A government source told the Guardian newspaper, “Protests have been lodged at every relevant level between the British authorities and our U.S. counterparts.”

British Prime Minster Theresa May will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, but officials said she would cut short the second leg of her trip to the G7 summit in Italy.

The Manchester bombing has raised concern across Europe. Cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St. Petersburg, Berlin and London have suffered militant attacks in the last two years.

Soldiers on the streets

The 22 victims in Manchester included an eight-year-old girl, several teenage girls, a 28-year-old man and a Polish couple who had come to collect their daughters.

Britain’s official terror threat level was raised to “critical”, the highest level, late on Tuesday, meaning an attack was expected imminently.

But with just over two weeks to go until a national election, May’s Conservatives and political parties said they would resume campaigning in the coming days.

The Manchester bombing was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London’s transport network.

Rudd said up to 3,800 soldiers could be deployed on Britain’s streets, taking on guard duties to free up police to focus on patrols and investigation. An initial deployment of 984 had been ordered, first in London and then elsewhere.

Soldiers were seen at the Houses of Parliament, May’s Downing Street residence and at the London police headquarters at New Scotland Yard.

The Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace, a draw for tourists, was cancelled because it requires support from police officers, which authorities decided was not a good use of resources given the threat level.

A source close to the bombing investigation told Reuters that the focus was on whether Abedi had received help in putting together the bomb and on where it had been done.

The bomb used in the attack appeared to contain carefully packed shrapnel and have a powerful, high velocity charge, according to leaked photographs from the investigation published by the New York Times.

The BBC reported that security services thought the bomb was too sophisticated for Abedi to have built by himself.

Police arrested three people in South Manchester, one woman in North Manchester, a man in the nearby town of Wigan, and another man in the central English town of Nuneaton.

Cancelled tour

Ariana Grande’s representative said on Wednesday she was suspending her tour to assess the situation and to “pay our proper respects to those lost”. The U.S. singer had been scheduled to perform two shows at London’s O2 arena this week.

Chelsea soccer club said it had cancelled a victory parade that had been set to take place on Sunday to celebrate its Premier League title.

Several high-profile sporting events are coming up in Britain, including the soccer FA Cup final at London’s Wembley Stadium and the English rugby club competition final at Twickenham on Saturday and the UEFA Champions League final at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on June 3.

Britain also has a national election scheduled for June 8. All campaigning was suspended after the attack, although major parties said they would resume some activities on Thursday and national-level campaigning on Friday.

The government said a minute’s silence would be held at all official buildings at 1000 GMT on Thursday.

Greater Manchester Police said they were now confident they knew the identity of all the people who lost their lives and had made contact with all the families. They said they would formally name the victims after forensic post-mortems, which would take four or five days.

The bombing also left 64 people wounded, of whom 20 were receiving critical care for highly traumatic injuries to major organs and to limbs, a health official said.

France, which has repeatedly been hit by devastating militant attacks since 2015, extended emergency powers.