29 May, 2017
President Donald Trump on Thursday described U.S. intelligence leaks over the Manchester bombing as "deeply troubling" and threatened to prosecute those responsible.
On Thursday multiple media outlets reported that the Greater Manchester Police had chose to stop sharing information about the investigation with USA intelligence experts.
Home searches across Manchester have uncovered important items for the investigation into the concert bombing, said Manchester's police chief yesterday, as the authorities closed in on a jihadist network thought to be behind the attack. Officials said 119 were also hurt.
United Kingdom officials apparently believe USA law enforcement, and not the White House, was responsible for the Manchester leaks, which is probably why Trump came out vowing to prosecute whomever was responsible.
Abedi reportedly returned from Libya only a few days before the attack which killed 22 people, including several children, but police are still trying to pin down his movements as well as determine whether he was part of a wider network. Citing unnamed federal security sources, the report says that the British-born Abedi twice flew from a German airport in recent years and wasn't on any global watch list. The report also suggested that the bomb was an improvised device made with forethought and care.
The question would be how classified information shared between intelligence services was leaked to the press, twice in one week.
Still, the escalating dispute over the release of information has soured relations between the countries ahead of Ms May's meeting with Mr Trump at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit in Brussels.
The president is expected to get an earful from May following the apparent leak at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit.
According to media reports, Abedi was known to United Kingdom security services, but his risk to the public remained "subject to review".
"I have been very clear with our friends that that should not happen again", she said.
Manchester's mayor, Andy Burnham, echoed that concern in a statement shared on Twitter in which he called the leaks "completely unacceptable" and urged that they "must stop immediately".
On Saturday night, police issued CCTV stills of Abedi, bespectacled and casually clothed, in a plea for information about his movements between May 18 and the attack.
It was the worst terrorist atrocity to hit Britain since the July 7 attacks in London in 2005 and sparked a huge counter-terror probe.
