by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 25 November 2024 Could MI5 have prevented the murder of 22 people? The key evidence remains a state secret. Two judges have rejected a legal claim by families of the victims of the 2017 Manchester bombing that MI5 could have prevented the killings. The justices at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal […]
Topic: Terrorism
by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 29 July 2024 Thirty years on, questions remain as to why the UK authorities allowed the Al-Qaeda terrorist leader to run an office in the British capital for four years. Thirty years ago this month, Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden established an office in a house in Kilburn, west London. […]
by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 22 May 2024 Seven years after 22 people were murdered in a terrorist atrocity at the Manchester Arena, David Cameron and MI5 continue to escape accountability for what they knew about the bomber. Will the truth about the UK secret state’s connections to the Manchester bomber ever be revealed? Not if MI5 […]
by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 14 June 2023 When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, UK officials knew Pakistan was directly aiding it, but continued to arm the government in Islamabad. British policy aided Osama Bin Laden who was then setting up his terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan. In October 1996, UK prime minister John […]
Phil Miller and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 3 March 2023 The final report from the public inquiry into the Manchester Arena terrorist attack fails to address any of the key questions about the bomber’s connections to the UK military and intelligence services. The bereaved families have been let down. The final inquiry report, published on Thursday, […]
Phil Miller and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 29 June 2022 Exclusive: David Cameron kept bombing Colonel Gaddafi’s forces in Libya after the UK military realised a banned terrorist group stood to gain from regime change. Part 3 of Declassified UK’s investigation into the Manchester bombing Britain’s military knew that fighters from an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist organisation […]
by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 28 June 2022 MI5 and Greater Manchester Police had numerous opportunities to stop Salman Abedi gaining military experience and contacts in Libya for years before the 2017 Manchester bombing – but they gave him free rein. Salman Abedi was never detained at UK border despite his known contacts with extremists […]
by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 27 June 2022 Salman Abedi and his closest family were part of Libyan militias benefitting from British covert military support six years before he murdered 22 people at the Manchester Arena in 2017. He is likely to have been radicalised by his experience. Close friend of Abedi convicted of terrorism […]
By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 25 May 2021 The public inquiry into the 2017 Manchester terrorist attack shows no sign of investigating the UK’s covert role in the Libya war of 2011 – in which the bomber had fought. He is one of four terrorists from that conflict who went on to slaughter 63 people, […]
by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 3 May 2019 Eight years on from Nato’s war in Libya in 2011, as the country enters a new phase in its conflict, I have taken stock of the number of countries to which terrorism has spread as a direct product of that war. The number is at […]