attack that has happened in england. it would be the third that we have seen in recent years. we will have continuing coverage of this breaking news story out of manchester, england, tonight live on fox news. >> tucker: this is a fox news alert. police have confirmed multiple fidelity's, perhaps many in the british city of manchester after and arianna ground a concert, reportedly was rocked by an explosion, at least one on monday night. an associate editor at dailymail.com is on the scene there in manchester and he joins us now. can you hear me? jake, can you hear me? were going to get back to jake is on the scene when we can clear that connection.

we go down to trace gallagher's been monitoring this and give us an overview. what we know? >> give me the big picture here. this happened about 10:30 five local time here in manchester. this was the end of the ariana grande concert. ariana grande had just gone off stage walked behind the curtain and there was some type of an explosion. the manchester arena that goes right into the arena. the people as you look in. they definitely heard something. a lot of them felt something. you can see the panic and the people trying to run out of the arena, but they did not see smoke and they didn't see something explode, but now you have the transit police in the u.k. saying that they are now focusing this investigation into the lobby. the foyer if you will know the ticket office because that's

where they believe this explosion may have happened and that's what they believe the multiple fatalities they keep telling us are there and numerous injuries. we've been watching ambulances come and go for the better part of the last two hours. we have seen them arrive, we've seen them leave. we have not seen any video of actual patients being taken away on stretchers. the numbers that we are getting clearly will change but right now from different reporting agencies, some of them are very high. the number of fatalities and injuries we haven't seen the video to back that up and we have not had any confirmation. again, inside the arena, there was some panic. the people that we saw coming out of the arena that pretty much superficial injuries. they had skinned knees, they had cut hands. could look like buddy eyes but there is nothing significant coming out of their but again, this appears to be going toward the size of the arena, towards the box office area where just after this concert ended at 10:30 five, that's when the

explosion happened. some heard one, some heard two, the most precise account we have heard so far is from a father who was waiting to pick up his family in the lobby. he's the one who heard one big bang and then he saw bodies on the floor, he saw people running out and he saw people who he says were severely injured. there is also video that i'm sure you'll plays very soon that was taken from the dashcam. you can hear the man. it was pointed directly at the manchester arena and from the outside inside his car, you could hear boom, one big boom, so clearly if you could hear that inside the car on the outside of the arena inside the arena, it must've been extraordinarily loud. still waiting for officials to get back to us with numbers and exactly more specifics of how this happened. >> tucker: to be totally clear, it seems at this point there is very little question this was an intentional act.

is anyone claiming credit? >> no one's taken credit that we know of so far in the early going there was some reports that it might've a balloon that exploded in front of a microphone or might've been a speaker that went off them. now, they're kind of taking that out because we have two different bomb squads that are arriving on the scene right now, the police are saying there are high number of fatalities and even higher number of injuries so at this point, they are investigating this as an act of terrorism and there is very little doubt that this was accidental. very little doubt that this was anything but an intentional act. we believe in the lobby area by the ticket office of the manchester arena which seats somewhere around 21,000 people depending on the configuration from the concert, but these were all young people. i have a 16-year-old daughter who would love to see ariana grande in concert. this was filled with young

people, and that's one more concerning thing for the officials there on scene in manchester. >> tucker: how many times you see something like this and nobody wants to believe it's happening again. trace gallagher, thank you. were going to go back down to jake wallace simmons, an associate editor at dailymail.com. he's on the scene in manchester and he joins us now. can you hear me now? >> good evening. >> tucker: what you know? >> i'm here right on the scene by the police cordon and a strange sense here in manchester following the huge chaos that erupted at around 11:00 p.m. local time when a big explosion was heard at the entrance to the arena. i arrived on the scene about 20 minutes after that and it was the scene of carnage. a crowd of people away from the arena, parents running into the

arena. but at this arianna ground a concert and they've seen the explosion. they were so close to the explosion that they were hit by the debris and they missed a desk they by matter of minutes. as we know, multiple fatalities here with the number has not been confirmed. quite horrific injuries. those two young women told me they saw a woman covered in blood. leaning against a parked car waiting for assistance. they saw a child being lifted into an ambulance by paramedics, all the wounded were herded into a car park to begin with and now some other casualty stations has been set up as well in nearby hotels. there is one hotel nearby in particular which is hosting a lot of children who were in the attack and in the chaos thereafter who are separated from adults and have no one to look after them.

so the scenes of chaos have dominated manchester this evening but now everything has slightly calmed down. the police have regained control. keeping everybody on the other side of the cordon and just taking it through the steps that they all have no doubt rehearse rehearsed. >> tucker: give us some context assuming there is any. was there any indication in the last week that there was going to be anything. were there any warning sense that there is an expectation of authorities that there might be a terror attack or anything like this? not at all. the police did not issue any kind of warning in advance that the terror threat had risen. recently in britain, the focus of terrorists have been on london. we have that successful attack not more than a couple of months ago where a policeman was stabbed to death by a terrorist and shortly afterwards, another man who was planning a similar

attack was arrested. cindy about london, there is a sense that they've been taken off guard because they've been focusing on london, there's been no sense of any warnings about manchester and certainly not at this concert here where thousands and thousands of young teenagers were just enjoying and arianna ground a concert. before the bomb went off, there were lots and lots of pink balloons in the audience. people speculated they may have been behind the sound before people started to see the fatalities and realizes an attack indeed. >> tucker: have two details coming across the wires here in the u.s. tell me if you know anything about either one. first at hospitals in the region are reporting that the wounds they are treating are consistent with those suffered in an mail bomb attack in the second, this being reported by an american

news agency that this was possibly a suicide bomber at work. have you heard either one of those things? >> some of the rumors that are swirling around but police are in caution at the moment. the british police are quite good at updating the media when they have definite conclusions or lines of inquiry that they can confirm but that hasn't happened as of yet. however, there is one eyewitness who reported that her hair in her bag and her clothes were covered in blood and debris from human bodies. she is also very close to the bomber was hit by some of the stuff which came at her from the blast. they suggest a suicide bomb, it may be what people are picking up and running with in terms of developing rumors about this but as a vet, the police have not confirmed either those reports. >> tucker: give us a sense of where this took place? is this right in the city of

manchester? >> that's right. this is right in the center of manchester. it's one of the proud parts of manchester, huge arena and is right next door to manchester's main train station. manchester is a major city in the north of england which is home to hundreds of thousands of people. the concert venue was packed with lots and lots of teenagers and young people, some parents taking their kids the concert. coming from far and wide all over will, by all and counts brought that horrible conclusion. >> tucker: you're looking at live pictures from sky news in great britain of the scene outside of the arena in manchester. on the phone now with jake wall simons who was a daily mail reporter. reminding us that the scene of this is right in the center of

that famed industrial center and it is over apparently a rail hub, kids of this concert not exactly sure have many have perished but a significant number. is this train still shut down in manchester? >> on total lockdown. ten past one in the morning as well, it would've been during the day but manchester city is on lockdown, certainly the area around the arena is on lockdown. they're stopping anyone from passing through. there's a lot of frustrated people here who weren't aware that that was taking place. trains are running, there's a real sense that this was a major incident that took place here in manchester and at the moment, everyone is just waiting for the confirmation of the number of the wounded. remember people that i've seen here relative of people who are

pleading with police officers and the police officers are taking to the stations to see if they can spot their loved ones. this is a very serious incident that has taken britain by surprise here. >> tucker: sky news is now reporting 19 have been confirmed killed in this attack. were not exactly sure the nature of it beyond what was said. some news organizations are suggesting it was a suicide bombing in the lobby of the serena at the end of an arianna ground a concert. 19 apparently dead, unknown injured. you have a sense of the magnitude of the injuries? are there a lot of people being treated right now for nonfatal injuries? >> there are a lot of people being treated. they've all been kept well away from the eyes of the press will come but according to reports of eyewitnesses who have left the stadium, a lot of them have been sitting on the court outside the

stadium where they've been receiving treatment effort people reporting horrible scenes, people with their faces mutilated, their bodies mutilated, people propping themselves up against the wall covered in blood, a grisly story that have become all too familiar in europe in the past couple of years. that figure of 19 fatalities is correct, then that would put this up there with one of the worst terror attacks that britain has endured in the past 20 years. >> tucker: let me just say, we're getting that number now in police in manchester in the u.k. will, 19 dead at this stage, they're counting 50 injured so give us a sense of the scale of this. one was last last time something like this happened in great britain? >> i think the last time when something was this magnitude happened on british soil, probably in 2007, where there is a london attack were bus was

blown up and there were bombs in the underground as well. in that attack, that was a coordinated series of attacks, took out a lot of different people at a lot of different places we haven't seen anything as bad since then and britain has really felt that was behind us. we thought that if we weren't going to see anything as bad as that again and pray to the attack that happened just a few weeks ago a knife attack in a car running, it was not on the sort of scale. this is 90 people blown up data concert. >> tucker: it's shocking. thanks a lot for that report at the scene in your perspective. we want to go to nick martin who is from sky and they are on the scene right there in manchester. >> wounded and injuries which demands a huge response from first responders, paramedics, police officers and so police forces have been rehearsing for

instances like this, but now they are embroiled in it for real here in manchester tonight. the helicopters in this guy. police cordons all around and huge amount of forensic evidence will now be focused on the arena and trying to build up a chronology of what happened starting at the beginning of the concert, was searched, was a searching sufficient, was anybody in the arena with a device that they shouldn't have been with? all of these questions will not be traced back as to trying to establish what happened here in manchester tonight. but the news that 19 people have died in that arena will be devastating for their family and friends but also a huge wake-up call for the police forces here and around britain and police forces across britain now will be on a heightened state of alert. britain's terror threat level is already high.

it's as severe, which means an attack is extremely likely. there's talk of that heightening them. talking about that earlier, our home affairs correspondent but around the cordons where i am in speaking for what i see here, there's a lot of activity, a lot of police officer stopping people, some people coming back to the cordons who are at the concert, although those numbers have diminished in the last half an hour, so most impossible to get within half a mile of the manchester arena now which is the city center location. this capacity is around 21,000, the biggest arena of its kind in europe. it has high profile concerts pretty much every week here in manchester. it attracts young, old, familie families. greater manchester police tell us that they've set up a victims bureau. that will be a number which families who haven't heard from their loved ones yet can call to

establish whether they're safe or whether tragically they have been caught up in this. just seeing around the corner now, typical more police activity. ambulances going back into the scene, just seen about two or three leave. that's one that's going back in towards the arena, which is just down that road this police court and, preventing us from going any further. police officers talking to the residents or people they're trying to get in there. they're being told not a chance. now being fully sealed off. we did hear earlier from eyewitnesses who a varying degree of eyewitnesses who all heard a bang as people were starting to leave that arena when the lights had gone out, some people thought it might have been electrical fault, some people described it as a speaker, exploding but clearly the level of fatalities, 19 as

of a few minutes ago would suggest something bigger, something perhaps more sinister than police.the police here would've set up a command headquarters in manchester. it'll be saying police officers organizing this investigation now, monitoring it is a major incident and terrorism will be high up that list of suspicions now given the scale of fatalities and wouldn't would imagine the scale of the injure injured. >> just a bit more detail as we piece together what will now be a terrorist investigation, the chronology and geography, this statement is for manchester arena, the call the venue itself saying there was concern as they were leaving the rio grande show. not much we knew. the incident took place outside the venue in a public space. we have believe that the

incident happened in the foyer area. the incident took place outside the venue in a public space, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims. >> going to going out to a witness, someone who is there, a man called chris polley, he was on the scene, shot video what he saw. thankfully he and his friends escape the scene without being injured. here's part of what he shot. right there. we assume this is him on the line? what are we looking at? as a lobby? >> that's actually in the station. coming out of the arena just before trying to beat the rush to come out a few minutes early. coming just out of where the box office is in the arena and then go to the train station as we get to the top of this, heard the biggest explosion, and it was about 20 minutes from where we stood. everybody started panicking.

we initially thought it was a terrorist attack because that's just what you think because of what's going on. we ran down the stairs and started to head to the door. before we got to the door, we hesitated because where were people to rush, so we stopped. people were screaming and shouting and it was the worst experience ever. >> tucker: so you heard one explosion? were hearing reports that there were multiple explosions but you said they were just one? >> will we actually in the building, one went off and then as we left, that's when the second explosion was detected. we just ran to the car. it didn't stop running. >> tucker: is there any security between any security checkpoints between when you get off the train underneath the arena and in the area where the bomb apparently went off?

>> no. going into the concert tonight, i've been to concerts before and sometimes you get down, absolutely nothing at this concert tonight. got our tickets. that was going going into the concert. where the explosion took place. >> tucker: so anybody could've brought anything into where the bomb went off? >> yes. anyone. as we left, there were so many children in their and teenagers and in the foyer where they explosion took place as we were walking through it, there were lots of parents in there and i said look at them all because i'd never seen anything like that before, so many people. 20 seconds later, walking to the

steps ominous when it went off. >> tucker: 's with the parents waiting for their kids to come out of the concert as parents do it things like this and standing outside waiting up for it to be over in the bomb comes off and the parent some them ran inside the building? >> which is chaos in the train station. and as we left, the phones were working because we are trying to ring her friends to see if they were okay, still inside at this point and there was just panic and chaos. >> tucker: to the cellular phone service was down? >> yes. couldn't reach anybody. >> did you see anyone injured? >> i didn't see anyone injured, no. we had just left 30 seconds like later, we wouldn't have been caught up in it. >> tucker: there were reports

that this might've been a suicide bombing and i certainly don't want to pass those on without evidence but a number of british publications are reporting that. did you hear from any other eyewitnesses that that is possibly true? >> i'm just watching the news now, only just started using the word terrorist. and went to this incident and then fatalities. now saying terrorist. >> tucker: we don't know that either. either. authorities are calling a terrorist investigation that appears to be the operating assumption and of course, it would be. he said it was your first thought. this is something that you worry about in manchester? >> my partner laughs at me because i would say we've got chopping, i was look around that exits and stuff just because

it's in the back of my mind. he was laughs at me all the time and as we were nearly in the car, that was what i said. we laugh at me and look what's happened now. so i think it's in a lot of our minds, with what's going on in the world. >> tucker: what did he say when he said that to him? >> it was like a told you so thin, we were just so scared. it's heartbreaking when people have died. it's making it feel even like we didn't know anyone had died at her didn't know anyone was -- we didn't know whether was an accident, so now we have people have died in. it's just making the whole situation a lot worse.

>> tucker: 11 manchester? >> yes. >> tucker: have you condescends was him like this coming recently? was there talk of terror? was there any kind of unrest, political unrest? have you hadn't a sense of it all? >> none at all. just what was on the news and stuff but nothing in manchester. >> tucker: the focus is on that she was think of london is a place where something like this happened, how quickly did authorities get to the scene? >> very fast. as soon as we exited the building there was police cars there,ens, and then we ran to the car. as we were driving away, up the road still in manchester there must've been about six police vehicles driving about 80 miles

an hour headed for the city center. the police responded very fast. >> tucker: other checkpoints at public events typically in manchester when people gather for a concert, is there metal detector a kind of pat down back >> never any metal detectors. from pat downs, they've done it once or twice but more often than not, you don't get patted down or anything. definitely on this one, we didn't get any checks whatsoeve whatsoever. >> tucker: you said there were a lot of kids at the concert in. by that, dealing teenagers and what percentage of the people would you say you saw there were young people? >> a right up to 16, that was a majority of the people, children. people with similar parents.

20 feet all around me, it was all children with their parents. the kids and just one parent accompanying them. it was two young girls next to me, they must've been about 13. >> tucker: so whoever did this -- >> whoever did this, more specifically kids. >> tucker: there is no doubt that this was a concert with children at it, lots of childre children. >> levers done it would've known that. it's bad enough, people dying anywhere but then when you bring children into it, it's just makes it worse. >> tucker: what is this make you think? what did you think this happene happened? >> i don't know. i'm just confused.

why anyone would want to do this to anyone. i have got a clue. >> tucker: he said there was panic after the bomb went off and of course there would be. you think people were hurt in the panic? >> no one was hurt because i was in front of this explosion to the people behind me would've been the people that got injured, but already gone. going as fast as i could buy that point. so i didn't see anyone into it. >> tucker: were people yelling? >> yes. screaming. it was women crying and stuff. people trying to get through, trying to get home to their kids and crying because they couldn' couldn't. >> tucker: you're describing something that's really awful, worse even than i thought it was when we first went to the story

and i'm glad you're okay and i'm glad you were able to tell us about what you saw because it's horrifying. >> thank you. >> tucker: thank you for joining us. the men we were just speaking to lives in manchester, he was at the ariana grande concert tonight. at around 11, to be a little before the tail end of the concert, somebody, we don't know who, nobody has claimed responsibility for it yet set off some kind of explosive device in the lobby of the arena. keep in mind, the arena is directly over the main train station in manchester, victoria station and there is apparently according to chris polly no security at all, no barrier between the train station in the lobby. we know as of right now, that 19 or dead according to police and at least 50 injured. chris gallagher has been wandering this. we'll go back to him for an update. >> it appears is not a case of

somebody circumventing security here. we have talked about this being in the foyer, the lobby of the ticket area. this is a public base. not inside the venue at all, but outside the ticket area, that's where the majority of the 19 fatalities were in the 50 plus injuries. remember, the man you were talking to said that he heard two different explosions and we have differing accounts from a number of people around there, most of them said they heard one big explosion, even the dashcam that kind of makes sense to us now. we show the dashcam earlier where man was sitting there. his camera was focused directly on the manchester arena. you can hear one loud bang. there it is right there. you can hear the loud bang. he we couldn't quite understand how loud it was. >> no.

>> couldn't quite understand, it was that loud outside, that was inside his car and, of the explosion was actually outside the arena. all of the eyewitness accounts, people coming out of there, those were inside the arena, they all heard something and they all felt something. but none of them saw anything that had to do with smoke or an explosion or people being critically injured. it was an inside the arena. wasn't outside the arena and we have to look at the timing here because it was 10:30 five local time at manchester. ariana grande had just finished her concert. she had walked behind the curtain and so they were people actually leaving around 21,000 people. leaving the venue and they were near the box office area. what we don't know is if the box office was open or close. we don't know if people might've been buying tickets for future

concerts. that's unclear. we don't know why people were gathered there but we do have eyewitness accounts from at least one man who said that he saw people lying on the ground bloodied. he was sitting near the lobby area and he was waiting for his family to pick his family. up. they were inside the concert. he looked over and he saw these people and he heard the explosion and he said that it appeared to him it was happening very near the right side of the arena. now are being told that appears to be the case. it was outside of the arena at the box office and if that's the case, this would not be an issue of circumnavigating or circumventing security even though there were no pat downs. there was a fair bit of security in and around the arena at the time this happened. tucker. >> tucker: trace gallagher, thanks. finding out just how much there was.

tom rogan is with us in the studio. a reporter who is written a lot on this from the u.k. last time anything like this happened was the 77 attacks in july of 2005, 5556 people killed and had that happen in london of course. manchester not a place you'd think of terror attacks. >> you might not. but in the united kingdom, manchester has time and again come up on the counterterrorism radar. you have major exercises there as you had in london in recent years to try to prepare for peristyle attack. you also have in terms of both al qaeda, the syndicate, the old form of july 7th as you mentioned. also isa spots there. so it is very much on the counterterrorism radar in the british sense. by the scale of the response that we saw, i think quite clear early on as it is much more likely than not a coordination terrorist attack in a serious one based on the size of the

explosion in the relative casualties. i think there's a reason we didn't see immediate photographs coming out of casualties and that was because anyone in that blast radius was very seriously injured or killed. >> tucker: were not going to even speculate as to who might be responsible for this because we'll find out soon enough and that would be unwise but as a more general question, is there any potential terror group on the radar of british authorities that were not aware of? that is not basically middle east based black >> traditionally in the united kingdom, the threat has been either irish separatist groups, the ira, this is not fit an irish republican group targeting profile in the sense that there is an performer, the ira never targeted americans, also children. there's a calibration that suggests a jihadist group. as you say, the consumption of intelligence that will be very quick in terms of the forensics

and the bomb, you saw how quickly the british authorities have been communicating with american counterterrorism authorities. >> tucker: liquid, were just getting something from sky news in manchester. authorities there are reporting the second explosive device apparently has been found in or near the arena and will be a controlled detonation of that advice. so that suggests right there a level of coordination and sophistication. it tells us something. >> i think it's why suspect you will see the british prime minister this evening, national security council meeting. it suggests more than what we have -- access to firearms. the level of one of the great benefits unfortunately if you can call it that is isis crossing her al qaeda, but anything quite frankly in recent years has been at the actual explosive device is quite crude.

badly made this, clearly someone knew what they were doing here which immediately upticks the concern level because where they come from, what is their organizational structure, what might be coming tomorrow or next week. so this is as you said at the beginning of the interview, the most serious very obviously investigation since july 7th and it's jumping up that radar. >> tucker: do think that this will spur a public conversation, a free exchange on whether or not there is a problem, a real problem that is dividing british society, taking the lives of innocents as we saw tonight? or will the people in charge do their best attempt on the conversation which is what appears to have happened? >> i think it's inevitable, the conversation for simple reason. this reflects behind-the-scenes counterterrorism officials concerned with a lot of times are targeting, which is children in particular. the element to that, june 8th

next month, british people go to the polls and the prime minister in them main opponent have quite a diversion of viewpoints. so it comes at a very politically emotive time. i think there will be rendering of national conversation. >> tucker: there ought to be. were going to go back to sky news here, who has an eyewitness on camera. >> amen shouted ron, so we all panicked. came out, smelled it, it seemed to be like this was. >> speaking to me a short time ago who obviously managed to escape that loud blast with her young daughter evi, 11 years old at her first concert. there member that for many years to come. press association are reporting the greater manchester police have now carried out that controlled explosion in the cathedral gardens area near manchester arena.

was was a second suspected devi? we will await official confirmation of that. but certainly as we look at that, there is a large cord and placed around manchester arena. police also reporting on this incident saying the victoria station is closed, unlikely to for some time to come. and that news agencies saying it's being carried out, some confusing information about whether or not that has happened especially since it was imminen imminent. at the moment, special media is full of people, if they follow hotels and local people for refuge. but also people are trying to track down the concert.

>> we can't say whether these are all genuine. certainly appeared to be genuine. lots of people at this concert. huge following among teenagers, younger children who have been separated from their parents. lots of people are posting pictures of concerts where they haven't heard from this evening. it could be for a number of reasons, but certainly they want to know if their friends are safe. lots of people who have been posting these photos. their friends have been found, with reports that there are hotels which have taken children awaiting to be reunited with their parents. manchester taxi drivers offering free rides to anyone because we know that the transport situation is quite dire and as you were saying the earlier, the hashtag is trending, certainly

people offering accommodation to anyone who stuck in the city tonight as they try to come to terms with what is certainly a devastating incident. 19 people confirmed dead. 50 injured, hospitals already warning how they're diverting all resources towards manchester arena, certainly many people being taken to the hospital threatened not to go to those with what they are associated with what happened at the manchester arena. not to contact the hospitals to certainly emergency services including police stretch tonight but certainly the witnesses we've spoken to seem to suggest that they are taking care of the situation. >> let's just listen now to more reaction from people who are at the concert. >> it was a massive bang,

screaming and crying and didn't know what was going on, trampling over us. we were just really confused. a big bang, smell of smoke, everyone was screaming and crying. didn't even know what was going on. >> did you say you are being treated in the ambulance? >> what people have said, the same people like that in the scene, everyone was saying there was a gunshot. we didn't know what was going o on. >> what was going through your mind when you heard that loud explosion? >> scared. we didn't know what it was. we were kind of hoping it wasn't the worse, then ended up being the worst sort of thing. >> how would you describe, was it sheer panic? >> everyone is panicking. >> never seen anything like it. really scared.

>> obviously, we've heard people have died and a terrorist related, they believe. >> we googled it as soon as it was out -- >> tucker: want to go down to nigel faraj, certainly of political figure in the u.k., led the charge last summer, saw them on the line. are you there. >> i am. that evening. >> tucker: what's your reaction to this? >> horrified. this is a direct attack on children, which marks a new low i think in all forms of terrorism. we've seen a tax on all sorts of different communities them. the last bomb we saw in the united kingdom is actually in a pubs losing all sorts of horrendous things, but a direct attack, absolute willful. >> tucker: what you think the ramifications for this are going to be?

given that we don't know anything beyond what we reported now but it raised certain suggestions and i wonder if it will change the nature of the debate going on the u.k. for a while. >> to a large extent, only for looks at the kind of terrorism that have happened in belgium or france, and they've been incidents, repeated incidents in the last three years in france, of islamic terrorism. i think we've kind of -- not got complacent. we've convinced ourselves that we are in a better place than the rest of europe on this. i'm not going to rush to judgment. on who the perpetrator is. but i think that any sense that the united kingdom is safer than france or belgium has rather disappeared this evening. >> tucker: it sure seems to have. were you surprised at this took place in manchester rather than london?

>> funnily enough, i was actually in manchesterht. it is our second city. it is a big city, it is a thriving city. but yes, we think of when terrorism happens in this country, we think of the london shoe bombings, we think of the guy who ran those people down on westminster bridge, but the fact that it's happening outside of london, the fact that it's directed to kids. this is going to be a very big shock for the country when it wakes up tomorrow morning. >> tucker: there's an election coming up. does that play a role? >> so far in the election, we've been talking basically about before in completing brexit and actually terror, open-door immigration. relatively low roles in the election campaign so far. there are 16 days to go. if it were to turn out that this

attack, for arguments sake was taken place by someone who's been fighting with isis in syria and to change the whole debate, which is not been told things about security in the selection at all so far. >> tucker: why is that, do you think? >> i think that brexit on its own et cetera massive defining in british politics. the biggest thing constitutionally that's happened in this country for hundreds of years, and that has completely dominated the debate. we really rather thought that these things happened in france, happened in belgium, happened in places we haven't got as good of security services as us. we have been loaded to a slight sense of complacency. >> tucker: do you think the fear of terror played a role in

brexit's passing in the first place? >> i think it did and i very much used what mrs. merkel had done when she said it was in a single security check of anybody, said yes, it did play a factor in brexit but not as big a factor as the democratic concept of getting back in control of our country. that was the primary reason for brexit. we wanted to make it laws, not have the make it somewhere else but certainly terrorism, open-door immigration, and still to this very day, there are tens of thousands of people a month crossing the mediterranean and getting into europe. >> tucker: jeremy corbin represents half of the british electorate or a pole, a position on the political spectrum there. what's this parties position on terror more broadly? >> he takes the view that we are

all citizens he's totally relaxed about people moving freely across the world and he has over the years allied himself quite closely with his brother, and even the leaders of the ira. i think on terrorism, he is very, very weak and this was to have a really big impact on any of the leading protagonists in this election campaign, i suspect that it's him that will be seen to be soft on this this year. >> tucker: is there less security in manchester than there is a london? >> london clearly has more security than manchester, but this was a rough concert, 21,000 people there, mostly kids and some parents in attendance. they would've had normal security procedures, but it looks like this device didn't go up inside the concert hall

itself, a taxi went up in the foyer outside. where the public would've had access. it raises all sorts of concerns, but at the end of the day, it's very difficult, isn't it? it's very difficult to guarantee people safety, security, whatever crowds of people need. literally if you do think about every single soccer match and every single rock concert, is very difficult to know what limits you can go to with security without actually making the cost of these events prohibitive. very good very difficult problem. >> tucker: my last question, these things are impossible to anticipate obviously, but was there any sense at all that there was a terror threat around the manchester area recently? >> not at all. i think everybody thought it was going to be another incident, it would be in london. we have been on the coast of high state alert for a very, very long time but everybody

thought it would either be an attack on a big symbol in london, like parliament was the last one. we don't yet know, this kind of thing would happen at a concert for the teenage girls. it was almost unimaginable. >> tucker: to children and their parents. it's a lot for that. back to fox hq where shepard smith has been following this for an update. >> we've been following social media over across united kingdom and there is an outpouring of support happening now hotels and businesses opening up their stores in their hotel rooms, local families offering to bring these kids in. from everything we've been able to pull together on social media and from all or please contact here, thousands and thousands of unaccompanied minors, some of the most riveting reports of what had happened taken from parents who are outside the arena waiting to pick up their kids. the lights had just come on in the arena, kids were making

their way toward the door to meet their parents upfront, some arrive to ride the trains back with their parents and others to get in the car and go home, quoting from the bbc. when i got up and looked around, they're just bodies everywhere, i reckon 20 to 30 bodies. i can't say if all of them were dead, but they look dead. they were covered in blood and seriously hurt. the first thing i did was run into the arena trying to find my family. so this parent had been right out front. every report seems to indicate this was right at the foyer of this place. if you were to go straight down the stairs in the front of this building, you get right to the train station, shut the trains down almost immediately so it was very difficult for people to get anywhere. as a result, the kids didn't have anywhere to go and there was this panic that continued to build, multiple reports of kids screaming in the stairwell, one from "the guardian" newspaper said lots of parents redoing the same thing. this one parent had a wound on her neck. she didn't realize what had happened but there was a loud

noise and she felt heat on her neck that she was waiting for her daughter at the ticket office at the arena with this said the bomb went off. she ran to find her daughter while her husband helped an injured woman, they haven't even attended to her wounds yet. so still 10 minutes now to 2:00 in the morning there in manchester and are trying to get a handle on all of this. >> tucker: about the reports of the second device, we are hearing sky news is reporting that it was detonated in a garden outside the arena. and we know that there was a second device? speak we know that it wasn't. we just got confirmed for manchester police, it was a bag of clothing. it was one of those see something say something sort of situations. they didn't know what it was, they blew it up and didn't realize it was a second device. for your viewers who are watching on social media, there've been widespread reports of a gunman at a hospital, also not true. that hospitals on lockdown and those people are working hard. there is another report of a second unexploded device at another location, also not true. there's a great deal of panic and rumors spreading.

>> tucker: we're hearing a lot of reports, some of them from credible news organizations that it was a suicide bombing. you're not affirming that we don't know. >> we have heard from three different sources that authorities believe it was a suicide bombing and it's interesting to me that we got that report almost exactly to a half hours after the explosion was reported pinned to me, that means people with more expertise who have come from farther away have come and said that's what it looks like to us. whatever it was, and went off outside the ticket office near the front of the serena and it happened as the first people had come out and there's five and is left in the show, people start streaming to the exits, 20,000 plus people trying to get a jump on traffic. and it was those people and parents of those who are still inside who were gravely wounded and killed. >> tucker: it for obviously gruesome reasons, it's not always clear if the suicide bombing right away. thanks a lot for joining us for that update. the center for security policy

joins us tonight. what are the obvious questions? >> the first question, was it terrorism? it seems to be in, the reports of a bomb, the entire profile fits either a suicide bombing or someone who dropped the parcel. they appeared to have played it fairly smartly by not trying to enter the concert itself. why go through security when you could either detonate right outside or leave the device right outside when the crowd is screaming out at the end? you get not only a lot of people with potential casualties but unfortunately, you get the third order of effect, stampeding the crowd and critic billy not creating hysteria. fit the profile of a terrorist attack. >> tucker: who would do something like this? it's a ariana grande concert, it's not the symphony. he going to have a lot of kids, a lot of little girls in this place. and whoever did this knew that. so it takes a commitment to something i don't know, grotesque. this is not a conventional

political statement by a conventional radical group. this is something bigger and scarier. >> i think we know who did it. i don't know which particular branch, ices, al qaeda, but president trump said the word islam is. that means people who believe that islam should rule the world by force if necessary. it doesn't matter what particular branch they belong to. they don't wear badges, they don't wear uniforms. they kill children on purpose. they did so tonight almost certainly and we're going to have to rededicate ourselves and hopefully the british will rededicate themselves towards looking at the people who do this. looking at that ideology. here's the people who believe in that and surveilling the places they are, looking at the places where you can stop this before it happens, not clean up the bodies afterwards. do an opportunity doesn't exist. thanks a lot for that. going out to ed davis was the former police minister of boston and the man behind the response to the boston marathon bombings,

has expertise on this question. are you there? >> i am. >> tucker: one of the questions on the scene are asking themselves now, what are they doing at this moment? >> first is the rescue of the people. the evacuation provided to the individuals who were injured. you have the casualties here. the next thing is to secure the scene and clear passages. that's exactly what happened with this unintended package that was detonated by the bomb squad. in boston, the scene was looted with backpacks and things that people brought as they went awa away. all of those things need to be looked at as potentially containing a bomb. it's a very slow and methodically going to the scene to make sure that there's other threat there. but then they're going to be looking at the potential for

follow-up as saw the attack in mumbai, the fact that sometimes these attacks hit different places simultaneously is always a concern in offices who are out there right now. >> tucker: ed davis from boston please. thanks a lot. thanks for your expertise on that. want to go now to something that happened over the weekend which may turn out to be pertinent to what we've been talking about for the last hour. his remarks are the president of the united states in saudi arabia when he addressed the question of what has gone wrong in one of the world's great religions, islam. here it is. >> every time a terrorist murders an innocent person and invokes the name of god, it should be an insult to every person of faith. when terrorists do not worship god. they worship death. this is a battle between barbaric criminals who would

seek to obliterate human life and decent people all in the name of religion. it's a choice between two futures and it is a choice america cannot make for you. drive them out of your communities. drive them out of your own land. and drive them out of this area. >> tucker: a former spokesman to the united nations and he joins us now. there's a lot we don't know about what apparently has just happened tonight in manchester, 19 dead, at least 50 wounded but those might turn out to be directly relevant to what we're watching. >> thank god we have president trump. that's all i can say. look at what's happening in manchester. it's purposeful. looks like it was designed to maim and kill and that's the definition of terrorism. the lessons that we need to

learn or we as americans need to be vigilant. we need to always be ready. it can happen at any time. europe looks like it is at the forefront of what is happening. we've seen multiple attacks now. i think publix and people whether you're in europe or the united states, you need to be looking for leaders who are very clear eyed about the attacks that are underway, the war that we are in. this is a very serious situation. we must have policies that lead us towards intelligence gathering techniques so that we can do everything we can to try to stop these attacks before they happen. it's impossible to be able to do, but there are tools that we can take and policies that we can implement. the public must stand vigilant and i think that what we've seen over the last couple of days in saudi arabia from our president who's on his way to europe, i think that this president is very clear eyed and understand

the threat that we are facing and i feel much safer with donald trump in charge. >> tucker: only got about 45 seconds left, but you've been around people making policy, did they look to europe as a template for what not to do here in the united states? >> i think what i would say is we always are vigilant to learn from what's been happening and europe has been at the forefront. so what we need to be able to do is understand what the european leaders, whether it's in england or in brussels or in paris, what they're doing and what they're not doing correctly. we can learn from each other and i think that's why we need to be sharing intel and sharing this information as it unfolds. >> tucker: take a look at the lessons we can learn. thanks a lot for coming on tonight. we've spent an hour with you on what is turning out to be a big and truly horrible story. fox's going to be on it all night. we'll turn it over now to shepard smith in the 9:00 p.m.

hour, 19 dead in manchester, england, and the terror attack. at least 50 wounded at an arianna grande concert. >> shepard: it is not a clock on the east coast. 2:00 in the morning in manchester where the explosion has happened and authorities believe a terror attack has happened. they are investigating it as a terror attack at the manchester arena. one of the largest if not arenas of its kind in all of europe. the time was 10:40 p.m. british summertime. a large explosion occurred around the foyer of the serena. right above the tickets did tit office. in the arena at the time, after this noise