REPORTS AND ANALYSIS ON THE MANCHESTER OUTRAGE:
TWO close relatives of the Manchester suicide bomber were in custody in Libya last night as the hunt for the network behind the atrocity escalated.
Salman Abedi’s father Ramadan and younger brother Hashem were held after being arrested by counter-terror police.
Hashem was accused of having known about his brother’s murderous plans for more than a month, while it emerged his father had been a revolutionary fighter who had publicly voiced support for an Al Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria.
A third relative, Abedi’s older brother Ismail, was arrested in Manchester. It is not known what his involvement, if any, was.
Last night, attention focused on how the bomber had been allowed to slip through the net. Key warnings about his descent into jihadism were apparently overlooked. Yesterday it was alleged that two calls about his conduct had been made to a police antiterror hotline and that his family had repeatedly raised concerns he was ‘dangerous’.
It was also claimed the university drop-out had been turned over to Isis by a well-known jihadi recruiter in Manchester; had travelled extensively in the Middle East and received terror training in Syria; and that he returned to the UK from Libya just days before the attack.
As police prepared to make a number of ‘significant’ arrests last night, it emerged that detectives were probing possible links between the Manchester Arena atrocity and the Paris and Brussels terror attacks. Sources said officers are exploring whether the same cell was responsible for all three outrages. One theory is that Abedi may have been part of a larger cell that included Mohamed Abrini, known as the ‘man in the hat’, with connections to the mass murders in Paris and Brussels. Abrini is known to have visited Manchester in 2015.
Detectives believe Abedi, 22, may have just been a ‘mule’ and that the specialist who prepared his sophisticated device is plotting further bloodshed.
Yesterday armed police and the military stormed a series of addresses in Manchester as Britain went into an unprecedented security lockdown, with up to 1,000 troops outside some of the country’s most historic sites. On an extraordinary day:
Harrowing police pictures of the terror crime scene were leaked to US media, showing screws and nuts propelled by the blast;
This prompted a furious reaction from Downing Street with British prime minister Theresa May expected to protest to US president Donald Trump today;
It was reported Abedi may have had links to an Isis cell that operated in Manchester, and knew one of its most prolific recruiters Raphael Hostey – thought to have been killed by a drone strike in Syria last year aged 24;
Chilling images emerged purporting to show Abedi in Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre with a
May have had links to an Isis cell in Manchester
rucksack on his back three days before the attack;
÷A woman became the sixth person to be arrested as police launched a massive manhunt for the network behind the attack, amid fears the mastermind is still on the loose;
÷More heartbreaking stories emerged about those killed on Monday night, including an offduty policewoman and a woman who shielded her niece;
÷Sources said Mrs May will today call on Nato to join the military campaign against Isis terrorists, to show ‘unity’ with Britain;
÷New criminal offences designed to ensnare Islamist hate preachers were being drawn up by ministers;
÷Google, Twitter and Facebook were still circulating grotesque terror manuals yesterday, despite being warned about them 24 hours earlier;
÷It was announced a minute’s silence will be held in Britain today at 11am, while general election campaigning will resume fully tomorrow.
Last night security services faced difficult questions after a Muslim community worker said members of the public called the police antiterrorism hotline warning about Abedi’s extreme and violent views several years ago. The unnamed worker told BBC News that two people who knew Abedi at college tipped off officers after he made statements ‘supporting terrorism’ and expressing the view that ‘being a suicide bomber was okay’. The calls are thought to have been made five years ago after Abedi left school, the worker added.
It is also understood that Abedi was in Manchester earlier this year when he told people of the value of dying for a cause and made hardline statements about suicide operations and the conflict in Libya.
Meanwhile, the French interior minister Gerard Collomb yesterday said its authorities had learned from British investigators that Abedi had travelled to Libya and probably Syria in the lead up to the Manchester atrocity.
‘Today we only know what British investigators have told us – that someone of British nationality, of Libyan origin, suddenly, after a trip to Libya and then probably to Syria, becomes radicalised and decides to carry out this attack,’ he said.
Intelligence experts believe Abedi travelled to a conflict zone during a trip to Libya where he was given specialist training that enabled him to carry out the sophisticated attack.
It is understood the security services do not yet know how many countries he visited and are not certain which ones. They were still working to establish his travel pattern.
According to reports in the US, members of the bomber’s family had also warned security officials about him in the past, saying that he was ‘dangerous’.
NBC News reported the claims from a ‘US intelligence source’ but they did not give any more details of when the family’s fears were reported to authorities.
The bomber’s father Ramadan Abedi was arrested yesterday outside his home in a suburb of the Libyan capital Tripoli.
A witness said the 51-year-old, who had earlier insisted his son was innocent of the Manchester bombing, was handcuffed by armed men and whisked away. An official did not explain why he was arrested.
Abedi’s younger brother Hashem, who was also born in Manchester, was detained in Libya on Tuesday night on suspicion of links to Isis.
Hashem is said to have been in contact with Salman and is suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital, police said.
According to reports last night, Abedi’s mother Samia Tabbal is a close friend of the wife of Abu Anas al-Libi, an al Qaeda veteran allegedly involved in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
He died in custody in 2015, two years after being snatched off the streets of Tripoli by US special forces.
Abedi is suspected of receiving terror training in Syria, where he may have visited after seeing family in Libya. He is believed to have returned to the UK just days before committing mass murder at the Manchester Arena.
Amedi’s parents are thought to have been granted asylum or leave to remain when they first arrived in the UK.
Engineering student Hashem Abedi was being interrogated last night in Tripoli over claims he helped his older brother Salman build the suicide vest.
Last night Tripoli’s deterrent force released a picture of Hashem in police custody wearing blue overalls. It said he had been under surveillance for about a month and a half before the Manchester terror attack. But Libyan detectives are not thought to have told their British counterparts about the operation because they only suspected Hashem of planning an attack in Tripoli.
An SDF spokesman said: ‘Hashem confessed to being in the UK while the terrorist operation was being planned. And it is clear that he was fully aware of all the details of the [Manchester] terrorist operation. It is also important to note that Hashem left the UK on April 16, and said he was in constant contact with his brother, the executor of the operation.’
Last night it emerged that the father of the British-born boys has publicly voiced his support for an extremist group fighting in Syria.
He posted photos of soldiers clad in black uniforms from the AlNusra Front – the official Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda until it broke up last July –on his Facebook page five years ago. Underneath the photo, he wrote: ‘Victorious against the infidels… say Amen!’
Ramadan, a former airport security worker in the UK, also published a picture of Hashem holding a machine gun. Underneath the picture he wrote: ‘The lion Hashem... is training.’
And in another post, he incited his followers to rise up against soldiers who served under former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Last night a former Libyan security official claimed the father had been a member of a former AlQaeda-backed group in Libya.
According to the Associated Press news agency, ex-Libyan security official Abdel-Basit Haroun said he knew Ramadan, and that he had been a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the 1990s. The group had links to Al-Qaeda. Although the group has since disbanded, Mr Haroun alleged the father belonged to the Salafi Jihadi movement, the most extreme sect of Salafism and from which Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group hail.
Ramadan fled Tripoli in 1993 to Saudi Arabia after he was accused of helping Islamists by tipping them off before police raids.
He then claimed political asylum in Britain and lived there for 25 years, fathering three sons and a daughter, before returning to Libya after Gaddafi was ousted and killed in the country’s 2011 civil war. He went on to become a manager of the Central Security Force in Tripoli, as different factions continued to fight for overall control of the country.
His wife Samia Tabbal is a close friend of the wife of Abu Anas AlLibi, an Al Qaeda veteran who was snatched off the streets of Tripoli in 2013 by US special forces.
‘Being a suicide bomber was OK’ ‘Victorious against the infidels’