British spy agency concludes terror attack at Manchester Arena could have been prevented

Manchester.
(Image credit: OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images)

The perpetrator of the Manchester Arena bombing had been on British spy agency MI5's radar for years, The Telegraph reported Friday. An internal review of British law enforcement discovered that Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old suicide bomber who killed 22 people when he detonated explosives at the concert venue in May, accidentally became a "subject of interest" for MI5 in a case of mistaken identity in 2014.

Abedi was apparently enough of a concern, however, that his case was going to be up for reconsideration at a meeting scheduled for May 31 — just nine days after he carried out his attack.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales

Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.