22 killed in suicide attack at Manchester concert

* Police say attacker died at the scene* Witness says she heard "massive explosion"* PM May says police treating it as terrorist attack* Campaigning suspended ahead of UK's June 8 electionPrime Minister Theresa May said the incident was being treated as a terrorist attack, making it the deadliest militant assault in Britain since four British Muslims killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London's transport system in July 2005.Police said the attacker died after detonating explosives shortly after 10:33 pm (2133 GMT) at Manchester Arena, which has the capacity to hold 21,000 people. Children were among the dead, police said."We believe, at this stage, the attack last night was conducted by one man," Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins told reporters. "The priority is to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network."The attacker... died at the arena. We believe the attacker was carrying an improvised explosive device which he detonated causing this atrocity."A witness who attended the concert said she felt a huge blast as she was leaving the arena, followed by screaming and a rush by thousands of people trying to escape the building.A video posted on Twitter showed fans, many of them young, screaming and running from the venue. Dozens of parents frantically searched for their children, posting photos and pleading for information on social media."We were making our way out and when we were right by the door there was a massive explosion and everybody was screaming," concert-goer Catherine Macfarlane told Reuters."It was a huge explosion - you could feel it in your chest. It was chaotic. Everybody was running and screaming and just trying to get out."Ariana Grande, 23, later said on Twitter: "broken. from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don't have words."May, who faces an election in two-and-a-half weeks, said her thoughts were with the victims and their families. She and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, agreed to suspend campaigning ahead of the June 8 election."We are working to establish the full details of what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack," May said in a statement. "All our thoughts are with the victims and the families of those who have been affected."May is due to hold a crisis response meeting.US singer Ariana Grande Chinese President Xi Jinping sent his condolences over the blast to Britain's Queen Elizabeth, Chinese state media reported.Suicide bomber?There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but US officials drew parallels to the co-ordinated attacks in November 2015 by Islamist militants on the Bataclan concert hall and other sites in Paris, which claimed about 130 lives.Two US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said that initial signs pointed to a suicide bomber being responsible for the blast."In the absence of conclusive evidence, the choice of venue, the timing and the mode of attack all suggest this was terrorism," said a US counter terrorism official who also spoke on condition of anonymity.Islamic State supporters took to social media to celebrate the blast and some encouraged similar attacks elsewhere.Britain is on its second-highest alert level of "severe", meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.The US Department of Homeland Security was monitoring the situation in Manchester closely but said it had no information to indicate a specific credible threat involving music venues in the United States.British counter-terrorism police have said they are making on average an arrest every day in connection with suspected terrorism.In March, a British-born convert to Islam ploughed a car into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge, killing four people before stabbing to death a police officer who was on the grounds of parliament. The man was shot dead at the scene.In 2015, Pakistani student Abid Naseer was convicted in a US court of conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up the Arndale shopping centre in the centre of Manchester in April 2009.Parents' anguishManchester Arena, the largest indoor arena in Europe, opened in 1995 and is a popular concert and sporting venue.Desperate parents and friends used social media to search for loved ones while the wounded were being treated at six hospitals across Manchester."Everyone pls share this, my little sister Emma was at the Ari concert tonight in #Manchester and she isntarget="_blank"'>"Parents were frantic running about trying to get to their children," she said. "There were lots of lots children at Holiday Inn."