The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has flown to the UK to deliver in person an apology for leaks by US officials of details of the police investigation into the Manchester bombing.
Tillerson, who met the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, said: “We take full responsibility for that and we obviously regret that that happened. With respect to the release of information inappropriately … certainly we condemn that.”
[...]
“That whatever reason as people immigrate into our countries – whether it is in Great Britain, in the United States or other countries – we seem to have difficulty assimilating those people so they feel a part of our society and would never consider acts of violence against their fellow citizens and their fellow neighbours,” Tillerson said. “It is an extremely complex issue, this mass immigration of people we are witnessing around the world.”
British police have resumed sharing information with their counterparts in the US after a brief suspension over a series of leaks by American officials to journalists providing details of the Manchester bomb investigation.
The suspension, announced early on Thursday morning, lasted less than 24 hours. It was primarily intended to send a message to US law enforcement agencies registering anger at the casual way in which sensitive information was disclosed to American journalists.
The [tRump] threatened to identify and prosecute those who handed unauthorised information [from the Manchester bombing investigation] to the New York Times after the UK government reacted with fury to the leaks.
Well, who's to say it wasn't a British individual who passed it to the Times?
“The alleged leaks coming out of government agencies are deeply troubling,” Trump said. “These leaks have been going on for a long time and my administration will get to the bottom of this. The leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security.”
And the most sensitive leaks posing that threat have been made by the tRump himself.
He said: “The recent attack on Manchester and the UK demonstrates the depths of the evil we face with terrorism. Innocent little girls and so many others were horribly murdered and badly injured when attending a concert. Beautiful lives with so much great potential torn from their families for ever and ever. It was a barbaric, a vicious attack upon our civilisation.”
Positively inspiring. It's the adjectives that make his speeches oustanding.
“On intelligence sharing, we have strong relations with the US, our closest partner, and that is of course built on trust,” [British PM Theresa May] said. “Part of that is knowing intelligence can be shared confidently and I will make clear to President Trump that intelligence shared with law enforcement agencies must be secure.”
He's not going to take kindly to a woman lecturing him.
British police have stopped sharing evidence from the investigation into the terror network behind the Manchester bombing with the United States after a series of leaks left investigators and the government furious.
The ban is limited to the Manchester investigation only. British police believe the leaks are unprecedented in their scope, frequency and potential damage.
Well, that's embarrassing news when you're going to a NATO meeting.
Ian Blair, who was Metropolitan police commissioner during the London underground bombings on 7 July 2005, said his investigation had also been troubled by leaks from US intelligence.
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“I’m afraid this reminds me exactly of what happened after 7/7, when the US published a complete picture of the way the bombs had been made up. We had the same protests.
“It’s a different world in how the US operates in the sense of how they publish things. And this is a very grievous breach but I’m afraid it’s the same as before.”
[...]
Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, said the leaks were arrogant and disrespectful, and police chiefs also criticised the actions.
Arrogant and disrespectful: us to a T. And it starts at the top.
The Home Secretary has criticised the US after confidential details about the Manchester Arena attack appeared to have been leaked to the media by American intelligence officers.
[...]
A number of details about the Manchester Arena attack appeared in the US media – most notably on networks NBC and CBS – before British police had publicly released them to the UK media.
The initial death tolls, the fact the attack appeared to be a suicide bombing, and the name of the attacker, were all released through US outlets, apparently via leaky US intelligence sources.
[...]
Asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the US leaks, [Secretary Amber] Rudd said: "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 when it gets released from other sources and I have been very clear with our friends that that should not happen again."
They've let him go off script to address the bomb attack in Manchester. But they've made him wear an earpiece through which they can override his brain.
At least they can try. Looks like he took it out before speaking.
The bombers would think the name "monsters" is great - they would like that. So from now on, just remember, they're losers.
Losers?
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas had spoken first.
Allow me at the beginning to condemn the horrible terrorist attack that occurred in the British city of Manchester … I do offer my warm condolences to the prime minister of Britain, families of victims and the British people.
Theresa May, right wing British PM, was more in line with the tRump:
Speaking outside Downing Street after charing an emergency Cobra meeting, May said :“All acts of terrorism are cowardly attacks on innocent people, but this attack stands out for its appalling, sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenceless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives,.”
All US and British remarks on terrorism take pains to call terrorists cowards. That always strikes me as juvenile and weird. It doesn't do anything to prevent future attacks. It sounds so lame and hopeless. We can't prevent them or strike back in any meaningful way, so we call them cowards. That'll fix 'em.
They're not cowards. They're people trying to rebalance the world as they see it in a way that's abhorrent to us, but they're not cowards. It reminds me of the US military being unable to make quick work of the "evil" terrorist "cowards" in Iraq complaining that the insurgent guerillas wouldn't come out and fight like real men. Let's see - they're men in sandals who have old rifles and home-made bombs. Come out and show yourselves to soldiers in full warrior regalia, wearing helmets and bullet-proof vests, weilding the latest arms, with tanks and drones, you cowards.
A lot of impotent bluster from people incapable of stopping what their countries' foreign policies have created.
[May] also paid tribute to the others who had rushed to help, saying those “are the images that embody the spirit of Manchester and the spirit of Britain”.
When the people in Iraq and Afghanistan rush to help victims, the US and UK bomb them with more drones.
The White House said earlier that Trump was being updated on the attack by his national security team.
That crack bunch that has to draw pictures and repeat his name in memos to keep his attention?
As of this morning, it's still not clear who was responsible for the bomb. Reports say it was a suicide bombing, and police have arrested another man "in connection with the attack."
