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The Guardian reports:
At least 19 people were killed and more than 50 injured after an explosion in the foyer area of a crowded Manchester concert hall, which left hundreds of people fleeing in terror. [...] Police said they were dealing with a possible terror incident and counter-terrorism officials were assessing what caused the explosion. Investigators from the police and the domestic security service MI5 were part of the investigation.
Greater Manchester Police statement:
I can confirm the details of events tonight that we currently know. At around 10.33pm last night we received reports of an explosion at the Manchester Arena in the city centre. It was at the conclusion of an Ariana Grande concert.
Currently we have 19 people confirmed to have died and around 50 people injured.
The injured are being treated at six hospitals across Greater Manchester. My thoughts are with all those who have been affected and we are doing all we can to support them.
[...] We are currently treating this as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise. We are working closely with the national counter-terrorism policing network and UK intelligence partners.
Unnamed sources, who have not been directly quoted are widely reported as suspecting this incident was a suicide bombing.
Multiple senior U.S. law enforcement officials briefed by British authorities told NBC News that forensic evidence at the scene — including a body found at the blast site — indicated a suicide attack. British and U.S. law enforcement officials said they believed they had tentatively identified the bomber.
U.S. officials said initial reports indicated that some of the casualties might have been caused by a stampede of concert-goers.
Sky News reports:
Officers carried out a controlled explosion at nearby Cathedral Gardens shortly after 1.30am, but have since confirmed the item they found was abandoned clothing and not suspicious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:05AM (4 children)
Christianity had their age of enlightenment. Islam seems to lack theirs and until they had one they can't be allowed in a free and secular societies. And while Christianity didn't end the world. They sure made it miserably for hundreds of years and made sure that is their legacy.
Islam in the current incarnation will only be satisfied when you become a Muslim, no other condition will satisfy. Until then it is according to their belief alright to kill and maim you. The result is obvious for anyone that thinks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:30AM (1 child)
Pakistan, a country created in the name of Islam, has enough nuclear weapons to do some serious damage. They can make plenty more over time. The people there could elect an extremist government if they so chose. They have not.
Large amounts of the Muslim world are enlightened enough, or at least held back by the majority or minority (kings).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @08:03AM
They are held back by the fact that India will bomb their country flat if they ever try. Pakistan is full of extremists anyway, no need for a government to be it. They are complicit anyway.
(Score: 3, Informative) by cafebabe on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:17AM
That's an over-simplification. Radical Islam is only satisfied if you're converted, taxed or killed [theatlantic.com].
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 23 2017, @08:55PM
Historical background:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science [thenewatlantis.com]
An excerpt:
But the Islamic turn away from scholarship actually preceded the civilization’s geopolitical decline — it can be traced back to the rise of the anti-philosophical Ash’arism school among Sunni Muslims, who comprise the vast majority of the Muslim world.
***
A more recent take on the situation:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/19/stop-calling-for-a-muslim-enlightenment [theguardian.com]
Excerpt:
The reform of the Muslim world began in earnest at the turn of the 19th century, when Europe penetrated the Middle East with all the brusqueness you would expect from a rapidly developing civilisation whose constituent parts were in a race for colonies, wealth and glory. The cultural heartlands of Islam, by contrast, were lame, lachrymose, and chronically resistant to novelty. Cairo’s school of Al-Azhar – the acknowledged citadel of Islamic learning – suspected science, despised philosophy and hadn’t produced an original thought in years. The paradigmatic idea was that society under the prophet Muhammad had attained a perfection from which later generations were condemned to live at an exponentially increasing remove.