The Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack in Manchester, England, where a bomber blew himself up as concert-goers left a show by singer Ariana Grande, killing at least 22 people, including children.
The terror group said that “a soldier of the caliphate planted bombs in the middle of Crusaders gatherings” and then detonated them. It did not say whether the attacker was killed.
The group claimed that “30 Crusaders were killed and 70 others were wounded,” higher than the totals confirmed by authorities in Manchester.
Police, however, have spoken only of “an improvised device” used in the attack.
Greater Manchester Police announced today that they had arrested a 23-year-old man in the south of the city in connection with the attack.
Police say the man was arrested in south Manchester Tuesday, a day after the explosion killed 22 people and injured 59, many of them teenagers.
They did not provide details.
The explosion struck near the exit around 10:30 p.m. Monday as Grande was ending the concert, part of her Dangerous Woman Tour. Police cars, bomb-disposal units and 60 ambulances raced to the scene as the scale of the carnage became clear. More than 400 officers were deployed.
Pop concerts and nightclubs have been a terrorism target before. Most of the 130 dead in the November 2015 attacks in Paris were at the Bataclan concert hall, which gunmen struck during a performance by Eagles of Death Metal.
In Turkey, 39 people died when a gunman attacked New Year’s revelers at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul.
Manchester, 160 miles (260 kilometers) northwest of London, was hit by a huge Irish Republican Army bomb in 1996 that leveled a swath of the city center. More than 200 people were injured, though no one was killed.
(With AP inputs)
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