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In London on May 23, 2017.(Photo: Jack Taylor, Getty Images)

Witnesses to Monday night's horrific attack in Manchester, England, describedthe confusion, the smoke, the blood splattered all over the floor. After a suicide bomber detonated his device following a concert, people mentionedthe empty shoes: Blasts tend to blow victims right out of their footwear.

Most of all, survivorsremembered the children killed or maimed. The bombercoldly calculated that pop star Ariana Grande would draw young teenage girls, and the venue was indeed packed. An 8-year-old girl named Saffie Rose Roussos was the youngest to die.

The more than 20deaths and dozens ofhospitalizations made the Manchester attack, for whichthe Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility,England's worstsince 2005 and the fourth deadliest in Western Europe since 2015."We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children ... as an opportunity for carnage," British Prime Minister Theresa May said.

Suicide bombings are among terrorists' most insidioustactics and one for which Western nations have mostlyand fortunately been spared since 9/11. They are, bycontrast, a cruel factof life inthe Middle East and South Asia.

Just this year, dozens died when two suicide bombers detonated explosives near the Afghanistan parliament; at least 36 were killed when a driver exploded abomb-ladentruck in Iraq; and a suicide bomber at aPakistan religious shrine killed 75 people.

After Manchester, there will be calls to harden "soft targets." Bags were searched at the Manchester Arena on Monday, though witnesses say without much diligence. Even so, heightened security is animperfectresponse to suicide bombers. An evil, suicidalzealot willing to sacrifice himself or herselfina crowded placeis almost impossible to stop in real time.If denied accessto a concert, there is always a bustling train station or a shopping mall.

Other reactionsare worse than imperfect. People will clamor for more"extreme vetting" of immigrants. But the bomber in Manchester, identified as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, was born in thatcity, the child of Libyan immigrants.

So how to better defend against these attacks?

One way is to remember that citizens are on the front lines, and that their roles are essential. Before a suicide bomber straps on an explosive, there's a troubled life that must be lived out to the point of radicalism. Friends, neighbors and relatives are the witnesses to this behavioral change and are subsequently suspicious. Only to the extent they share what they know with a trusted police department can lives be saved.

But this also cuts both ways. Law enforcement and community leaders have to make it easy for first- or second-generation immigrants to step forward with their valuable insights about people who've become radicalized. Inflammatory rhetoric about banning all Muslims, or labeling Islam a hateful religion, only makes this more difficult.

Even with the right intelligence,law enforcement needs the resources to monitor threats. This was difficult in Britain. TheEconomist reported the domestic intelligence service knew of 3,000 potential extremists, but only hadthe manpower to monitor about 40 at a time.

As we've said after previous terror attacks, the war against violentIslamistextremismis not onethat will be over soon. It can'tbe won by playing defense or containing the threat. The international community must take the fight to ISIS, which has established strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

Yet even as a U.S.-led coalition closes in on Raqqa in Syria, the de facto capital of ISIS, the kind oftwisted ideology that motivated the Manchester attack will continue to fester in the shadows and erupt in places as joyful and innocent as a pop star's performance.

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