Townsville Bulletin

KILLER WORE FACE OF HATE

Deranged bomber a homegrown hitman

- ELLEN WHINNETT IN MANCHESTER

THE evil suicide bomber behind Britain’s worst terror attack in more than a decade was a homegrown killer whose parents fled Libya to escape the Gaddafi regime.

Yesterday it was revealed Salman Abedi, 22, was quickly identified after police found a bank card in his pocket at Manchester Arena.

He was known to the security services before he struck at the end of Ariana Grande’s concert on Monday night, detonating a homemade device packed with nails, nuts and bolts, killing 22 people, including children as young as eight, and injuring 59 more. Police have recovered CCTV of him striding into the stadium.

Meanwhile, last night Manchester police said they had arrested another three men in connection with the attack.

Police say they were executing a search warrant in South Manchester, in relation to Monday’s attack when the arrests were made.

There were claims yesterday Abedi spent time in a Middle East conflict zone, and a US intelligen­ce official told NBC the jihadi had ties to alQaeda and received terrorist training abroad. The official also said Abedi’s bomb was “big and sophistica­ted” and used materials hard to obtain in Britain, which pointed to help from others.

Details about the deranged killer came as more heartrendi­ng stories about his innocent victims emerged, including brave aunt Kelly Brewster, who shielded her 11year- old niece from the nailbomb, and Saffie Rose Roussos, 8, whose critically ill mother Lisa doesn’t yet know her daughter has died.

Pop superstar Grande yesterday flew back to the US, touching down in her home town of Boca Raton, Florida. She emerged looking exhausted with eyes full of tears as she embraced her waiting boyfriend, Mac Miller.

Grande has yet to speak publicly about the carnage but posted a message on Twitter on Tuesday that said: “broken. from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don’t have words.”

With Britain defiant but in a state of shock, Prime Minister Theresa May deployed troops on the streets amid fears of a follow- up terror attack. Intelligen­ce agencies fear Abedi may not have acted alone and the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre raised the attack threat to its highest level, critical.

Speaking after a meeting of the emergency committee Cobra, Ms May said: “We cannot ignore that there is a wider group of individual­s linked to this attack.”

She insisted the terrorists would be defeated, adding: “The spirit of Manchester and Britain is far mightier than the sick plots of the terrorists. That is why they will never win and we will prevail.”

It is the first time troops have been deployed in mainland Britain since February 2003, when Tony Blair sent tanks to guard Heathrow in a terror scare.

Soldiers will patrol key sites including sporting and concert venues, with undercover elite SAS troopers joining regular soldiers. Amid a series of revelation­s, it was claimed Abedi’s father, an airport security officer, had left the UK to fight in Libya. Sources also said his mother had raised concerns

about her son’s radical views before she herself left for Libya. Police also quizzed his brother Ismail, 23, on suspicion of involvemen­t in the bombing.

Greater Manchester Police said last night they had arrested three more men.

A chilling picture has begun to form of the terrorist who wore a “face of hate” as he grew up in Manchester.

Born there in 1994, the third of four children, his parents were Libyan refugees who went to the UK to escape the Gaddafi regime. His father left the UK in 2011 to try to overthrow the Libyan leader.

Friends and neighbours said Abedi appeared to be a normal, football- mad teen who spent hours playing computer games.

But everything changed when his father abruptly left his job and home in the Fallowfiel­d area to fight in Libya, leaving his family to fend for themselves, according to a local imam.

Abedi and his brothers appear to have followed in his footsteps by sharing stories of British jihadis fighting in Syria on social networks and even praying in the street.

The imam of Didsbury Mosque, Mohammed Saeed said Abedi stopped going to the mosque in 2015 as he objected to anti- IS comments. “He didn’t like what I was saying and showed me the face of hate,” Mr Saeed said.

One neighbour claimed they heard Abedi chanting Islamic prayers at the home just weeks before the atrocity.

The spirit of Manchester and Britain is far mightier than the sick plots of terrorists Theresa May, British Prime Minister

 ?? Main picture: AP ?? A police forensics officer emerges from Salman Abedi’s house in Manchester with a Know Your Chemicals book and ( inset) the sadistic suicide bomber.
Main picture: AP A police forensics officer emerges from Salman Abedi’s house in Manchester with a Know Your Chemicals book and ( inset) the sadistic suicide bomber.
 ?? Pictures: AKM- GSI / BACKGRID ?? A tearful Ariana Grande is met at Boca Raton by her boyfriend Mac Miller.
Pictures: AKM- GSI / BACKGRID A tearful Ariana Grande is met at Boca Raton by her boyfriend Mac Miller.

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