UK Police Stops Sharing Info with U.S. After Leaks to NY Times

In an exclusive look at the Manchester Arena terror bombing that took place three days, the New York Times published photos and released information regarding the coward suspected of detonating a homicide-vest filled with what was described as “dockyard confetti,” a brutal mixture of nails, nuts and bolts that are placed inside the vest in an effort to inflict as much mass damage as possible in a single blast.  The Times also released the name of the suspect and that was all too much for English authorities.

Police investigating the Manchester Arena bomb attack have stopped sharing information with the US after leaks to the media.

UK officials were outraged when photos appearing to show debris from the attack appeared in the New York Times.

It came after the name of bomber Salman Abedi was leaked to US media just hours after the attack, which left 22 dead.

Theresa May said she would tell Donald Trump at a Nato meeting that shared intelligence “must remain secure”.

The US’s acting ambassador to the UK “unequivocally condemned” the leaks in a BBC radio interview.

“These leaks were reprehensible, deeply distressing,” Lewis Lukens said.

“We have had communications at the highest level of our government … we are determined to identify these leaks and to stop them.”

Meanwhile, the Queen has been to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital visiting some of the injured as well as members of the emergency services.

While there she paid tribute to Manchester and the “extraordinary” way the city had responded to Monday’s attack at an Ariana Grande concert, in which 116 people were also injured.

They have decided to suspend the sharing of investigative information to American authorities based on this breach.  The confidence that they have placed in the intelligence community may be misplaced however for several different reasons.  The first and obvious reason is that the intelligence community may not necessarily agree with the line that has been taken by English politicians.  The second is that English authorities are not particularly keen to the idea that the New York Times, in its decades-long struggle with irrelevance, needs any sensational angle it can generate, fake or not, in order to sell its news.  That’s its bottom line, to be sure.  But third is a general feeling by the public that this hiding of the fact that the Manchester tragedy reveals the reality that this was a Muslim terrorist act of cowardice and it should be exposed and its importance highlighted, blared from the mountaintops as it were, is happening in order to begin to make a feasible and long-lasting dent in the frequency of these attacks.

In other words, hiding the truth does not solve the problem.  And that’s exactly what PM May and other English authorities are attempting to do.  By their timidity and softened language, they are emboldening the terrorists to make an even larger noise the next time around.  These terrorists want a reaction to their terror that inspires a complete change in behavior of those they terrorize.  They want people to alter their daily lives, to make changes that will grant them a false sense of security.  By tamping down the damage and the significance of this attack through diplomatic speech and careful tone, they are assuring English citizens that everything will be just fine and dandy.  That this is a rare occurrence and not indicative at all of a wide-spread issue of deadly proportions.  For them, you should buy into the line that Islamic radical terrorists are not the rule, but the exception, despite all evidence to the contrary; despite all words in contradiction to those many assessments by former Muslims who no longer espouse the words of Islam, but assure us that this will…not…stop.  Lead singer from the Smiths, Morrissey himself just yesterday took to Facebook to say his peace about this issue and he summed it all up in one large rant.

In total eight men are now in custody following the bombing carried out by Manchester-born Abedi, a 22-year-old from a family of Libyan origin.

The arrests have been “significant” while searches of premises have also yielded items “important to the investigation”, Greater Manchester Police said.

It has also emerged two people who had known Abedi at college made separate calls to a hotline to warn the police about his extremist views.

A Whitehall source said Abedi was one of a “pool” of former subjects of interest whose risk remained “subject to review” by the security service and its partners.

Greater Manchester Police hope to resume normal intelligence relationships – a two-way flow of information – soon but is currently “furious”, the BBC understands.

Its chief constable Ian Hopkins said the recent leak had caused “much distress for families that are already suffering terribly with their loss.”.

The force – which is leading the investigation on the ground – gives its information to National Counter-Terrorism, which then shares it across government and – because of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement – with the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

I think one of the other issues here is the fact that no one actually knows who or mentioned where the leak originated. For all they know, it could very well have been a detective involved who felt the need to get this information out to the public. The reasons are myriad, but then so are the justifications for telling the public the absolute unequivocal truth.

And for the Leftists, that hurts them more than the terror itself.

Source:  BBC News