19 killed in suspected terror attack at Ariana Grande concert in England

JTA

(JTA) – At least 22 people were killed in a suspected terrorist attack during a concert in northern England during a concert by the American popstar Ariana Grande.

Grande was not hurt in the explosion Monday night at the Manchester Arena stadium, which Prime Minister Theresa May said was likely a terrorist attack, The Guardian reported. British authorities said the explosion may have come from an explosive vest detonated in a crowd by a suicide bomber.

Many of the dozens of people wounded in the attack were teenagers and young adults, according to Reuters. Worried parents began arriving at the stadium in search of their loved ones. The attack was the deadliest since bombings that left 52w people dead in London in 2005.

The attack comes roughly two weeks before the United Kingdom’s general election, in which May, a hardliner from the center-right Conservative, party is running against the leftwing Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, who supports boycotting Israeli settlements and who is widely perceived as having tried to promote better relations and understanding between mainstream British parties and groups associated with radical Islam.

May called an early election following the resignation last year of former prime minister David Cameron, also a Conservative. Cameron stepped down following a referendumcalled by himself, in which a majority of voters rejected his position that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Union. Immigration by Muslims and other foreigners played a central role in the debate about whether the kingdom should leave or remain within the bloc it helped establish in the 1970s.

Grande, a 23-year-old who grew up Catholic but left the faith over the treatment of homosexuals in Catholicism in favor of Kabballah Jewish studies that she said in 2014 “changed her life,” wrote on Twitter that she was “broken” and “so sorry.”

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