WHOEVER gets in to Government at the next General Election will have to rethink how the country wages its war on terror, according to peace expert Professor Paul Rogers.

Prof Rogers, who is head of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford said people in the UK feel no safer now than they did 15 years ago when the fight against terror first began.

He said it might not be clear how that war can be won against terror groups such as IS but it was obvious whatever tactics have been used have not worked.

And he said the Manchester Arena bombing was one more indicator of that.

He said Theresa May putting up the UK's terror threat status to critical, for the first time since the Glasgow Airport attack ten years ago, and all the arrests that have been made linked to the Manchester atrocity imply the authorities do not think the Manchester attacker was a lone wolf.

He said that while the public will naturally react with horror to what has happened, links between the attack and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Syria must be made.

Prof Rogers said: "There is simply no appreciation that Britain is an integral part of a major war that started 30 months ago, in August 2014.

"It may take the form of a sustained air-assault using strike-aircraft and armed-drones, but its intensity is simply unrecorded in the establishment media. This is a straightforward example of remote warfare conducted outside of public debate.

"When another attack within Britain on the scale of 7/7 happens, there will be little understanding of the general motivations of those responsible.

"People will naturally react with horror, asking 'why us?' Politicians and analysts will find it very difficult even to try to explain the connection between what is happening 'there' and 'here'.

"The straightforward yet uncomfortable answer is that Britain is at war – so what else can be expected?"

Prof Rogers said since the air-war started in August 2014 the Pentagon has calculated that more than 30,000 targets have been attacked with more than 60,000 missiles and bombs, and 50,000 ISIS supporters have been killed but there was abundant evidence that western forces have directly killed many civilians.

"ISIS and other groups have no air-defence capabilities yet are determined to continue the war, seeing themselves as guardians of Islam under attack by the crusader forces of the west," he said.

"At a time of retreat they will be more determined than ever to take the war to the enemy. The links between the attack and the ongoing war in Iraq and Syria must be made. That Britain is still at war after 15 years suggests that some rethinking is required."

Prof Rogers also said a worrying element for the Government and the public is that this is the second time there's been a UK attack where the perpetrator was in some way known to the authorities, despite very heavy investment and hard work among the Counter Terrorism people.

"At some stage when we get over this trauma we really are going to have to have a rethink. We have been fighting this war on terror for 15 years and we feel no more secure but that's an issue that will have to wait for whoever gets in to Government."

"The sheer horror of this attack has come home to roost and I'd say there is an even more sombre mood than before."

But Prof Rogers praised the public outpouring at a vigil in Manchester on Tuesday attended by thousands of people, saying it was "very much for the good".

"It was an extraordinary outpouring. It was astonishing and very much to the good. One of the aims of terrorists is to cause as much community disunity as possible but the Mancunians put pay to that," he said.