ISIS Claims Attack in Manchester

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack at a concert in Manchester, England. As the New York Times reports:

The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Tuesday for the bombing at Manchester Arena, the deadliest terrorist assault in Britain since 2005, as the death toll rose to 22.

The bomb tore through an entrance hall of the 21,000-seat Manchester Arena at about 10:30 p.m. on Monday as a concert by the American pop star Ariana Grande was ending and as crowds of teenagers had begun to leave, many for an adjacent train station.

Pandemonium ensued, as panicked adolescents struggled to connect with parents and guardians waiting outside to pick them up. As well as those killed, dozens of other people were wounded in the attack; 59 were hospitalized, some with life-threatening injuries.

The police said that they were canvassing leads and poring over surveillance footage to determine if the assailant — who died in the assault — had acted with any accomplices. Shortly before noon on Tuesday, the police announced that they had arrested a 23-year-old man southwest of the city center “with regards to last night’s incident,” but they did not provide additional details.

This attack should clarify President Trump’s speech to the newly opened “Global Center for Combatting Extremist Ideology” in Riyadh over the weekend. The fact is, when it comes to attacks in and against the West, the threat is not necessarily exported from the war zones of Syria or the glitzy cities of the Persian Gulf. It is festering in the banlieues of Paris and among immigrant communities in cities like Manchester.

Consequently, extirpating ISIS from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria will not defeat its ideology of terror. On the contrary, as would-be ISIS fighters have been prevented from joining the Caliphate, their leaders are encouraging them to carry out attacks at home in the West.

There are 22 people, many of them children, who are now dead because of a vicious ideology that holds an innocent children’s concert as tantamount to crusade. Most Americans became familiar with this kind of hatred on September 11th. 16 years later, the end remains far out of sight.