In Manchester, UK, 20 Dead, "Hundreds" Injured After Two Bangs Go Off After Ariana Grande Concert

NBCNews, which still caveats that this could be "bangs" or something (which now seems very unlikely), claims to have confirmed 20 are dead and "hundreds" are injured.

Although there was some early speculation that this might not have been an explosion -- it could have been a balloon that popped and caused a panic stampede, in which people were trampled -- it's looking more and more like a bomb detonated with terrorist intent.

"US Intel" sources have confirmed an "explosion" of some kind.

Incidentally, there was a major terror alert at an airport in Goteborg, Sweden (also called Goetheburg), after explosive traces were detected in luggage left behind at the departure lounge.

The good news is that these appear to just be traces, and not an explosive device.

A bit of unconfirmed news -- this tweet claims the explosive detected is specifically pentrite.

Pentrite is a key component in Semtex, and it's also frequently used in terrorist bombings -- skip down to "Terrorist Use."

But it's also sometimes used as the primer charge in small-caliber ammunition, so I guess it's possible the bag could have just carrying ammo at some point.

posted by Ace at 06:54 PM

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