Britain hunts terror network after Manchester attack

Britain raced Wednesday to track down a jihadist network suspected to have orchestrated the Manchester concert bombing, as soldiers fanned out to guard key sites under a maximum terror alert.

Investigators were trying to piece together the last movements of suicide bomber Salman Abedi, a Manchester- born university dropout whose parents had reportedly fled the now fallen regime of Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

A French minister said he may have been radicalized in Syria.

“It’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,” Manchester police chief Ian Hopkins told reporters, with four people under ar- rest after a pair of armed raids on addresses in the city.

Monday night’s bombing, which killed 22 people including a girl aged just eight, was claimed by the Islamic State group which warned of more attacks to come.

It was the latest in a series of deadly incidents across Europe claimed by IS jihadists that have coincided with an offensive on the group’s redoubts in Syria and Iraq carried out by US, British and other Western forces.

Officials said the 22- year- old Abedi had been on the radar of the intelligence community before the massacre at a concert by US pop star Ariana Grande, and warned another attack “may be imminent.”

After arresting a 23- year- old man on Tuesday, police said they had taken three more men into custody on Wednesday in south Manchester, where Abedi lived.

An armed raid was also carried out in Manchester city centre on Wednesday, during which police said a nearby railway line had to be “briefly closed.”

Hundreds of armed military personnel meanwhile fanned out to take up guard duties at the British parliament and Buckingham Palace – a highly unusual sight on the streets of Britain since the end of the Northern Ireland conflict in the

1990s.