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I have just chaired another meeting of COBR, where we again discussed the callous and cowardly terrorist attack in Manchester last night, and the operational response from the security service, the police and other emergency services.
It remains the case that, other than the terrorist himself, 22 people were killed in the attack. Fifty-nine people remain injured, and many of them have life-threatening conditions.
As Greater Manchester Police confirmed earlier today, the perpetrator was Salman Ramadan Abedi, a 22-year-old who was born and brought up in Britain.
And as the emergency services have confirmed throughout the day, his victims were innocent children, young people and their families.
Our thoughts and prayers are with them all.
I want to reiterate what I said this morning about the professionalism of the emergency services and the bravery of the people of Manchester. Through their actions, they proved that cowardice will always be defeated by bravery, that evil can be overcome by good, and that our values – the liberal, pluralistic values of Britain – will always prevail over the hateful ideology of the terrorists.
In my statement earlier today, I said that the police and security services needed to investigate whether or not Abedi was acting alone. Those investigations continue. But the work undertaken throughout the day has revealed that it is a possibility we cannot ignore that there is a wider group of individuals linked to this attack.
This morning, I said that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) – the independent organisation responsible for setting the threat level on the basis of the intelligence available – was keeping the threat level under constant review.
It has now concluded, on the basis of today's investigations, that the threat level should be increased, for the time being, from severe to critical. This means that their assessment is not only that an attack remains highly likely, but that a further attack may be imminent.
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n.
