Trump labels people behind Manchester bombing ‘evil losers in life’
May 23, 2017, 1:36 AM | Updated: 11:22 am
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump called the people responsible for a bombing outside of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England “evil losers in life” during a press conference early Tuesday morning.
“So many young, beautiful, innocent people living and enjoying their lives murdered by evil losers in life,” he said during a joint press conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
“I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term,” Trump continued. “They would think that’s a great name. I will call them, from now on, losers, because that’s what they are. They’re losers. We’ll have more of them, but they’re losers. Remember that.”
Trump also called on the international community to do what it must to protect life.
“Our society can have no tolerance for this continuation of bloodshed,” he said. “We cannot stand, for a moment longer, of the slaughter of innocent people. And in [Monday]’s attack, it was mostly innocent children.
“The terrorists and extremists and those who give them aid and comfort must be driven out from our society for ever. This wicked ideology must be obliterated — and I mean completely obliterated — and the innocent life must be protected.”
Trump said his country stands alongside the British people.
“As president of the United States, on behalf of the people of the United States, I would like to begin by offering my prayers to the people of Manchester and the United Kingdom,” he said.
“I extend my deepest condolences to those so terribly injured in this terrorist attack and, to the many killed and the to the families — so many families — of the victims.”
More than 20 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in a Monday bombing outside of the Manchester Arena.
The Greater Manchester Police said the explosions were reported around about 2:35 p.m. Arizona time. Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said during a press conference that a suicide bomber — later identified as 22-year-old Salman Abedi — carried out the attack by detonating an IED, but the attack has not been officially classified as a terror act.
“We have been treating this as a terrorist incident and we believe that while the attack last night was conducted by one man, the priority is to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network,” Hopkins said.
A couple of hours later police said they had arrested a man in connection with the incident.
With regards to last night’s incident at the Manchester arena, we can confirm we have arrested a 23-year-old man in South Manchester.
— G M Police (@gmpolice) May 23, 2017
Medical officials said an 8-year-old girl was among the dead and 12 children under the age of 16 were among the injured.
Pop concerts and nightclubs have been a terrorism target before. Almost 90 people were killed by gunmen inspired by the extremist Islamic State group at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a performance by Eagles of Death Metal in November 2015.
In Turkey, 39 people died when a gunman attacked New Year’s revelers at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Online, supporters of Islamic State, which holds territory in Iraq’s Mosul and around its de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, celebrated the incident. One wrote: “May they taste what the weak people in Mosul and (Raqqa) experience from their being bombed and burned,” according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group.
Manchester 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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.