Gritty part of Manchester city recalls ‘angry suicide bomber’

MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, May 27, (AFP): The terror manhunt in Manchester focused on a gritty area of the city notorious for gangland murders on Friday as the head of a local mosque where suicide bomber Salman Abedi worshipped recalled him as an “angry” young man.

Armed police raided a house in Moss Side overnight in connection with Monday’s attack, shutting off a street of red-brick homes and shouting: “Hands on the ground! Get on the ground!”

A 30-year-old man was arrested in the raid which involved around 30 officers, neighbours said, while police searched a barber’s shop nearby where a local shopkeeper said three of Abedi’s cousins worked.

At the Salaam Community Association and Masjid, housed in a squat modern block, mosque chairman Abdullah Norris said 22-year-old Abedi had started coming there in January but had flouted mosque rules.

Norris said he had told Abedi, who killed 22 people and injured 116 when he blew himself up outside a pop concert in the Manchester Arena, to leave the mosque after finding him in a prayer room after closing time.

“He was angry. He said I shouldn’t shout because he’s not a kid. I said: ‘Yes you are, otherwise you would not behave in that manner’,” the 70-year-old told AFP as worshippers started to arrive for Friday prayers.

Norris said Abedi had started coming to the small mosque in January even though he lived in a different part of south Manchester but was not a “regular”.

The deprived neighbourhood has suffered from criminality in the past but the situation has improved in recent years.

Media reports have linked Abedi to Moss Side’s gangs and the murder last year of one of his friends, 18-year-old Abdul Wahab Hafidah, heightened his anger.

“I remember Salman at his funeral vowing revenge,” a family friend told The Wall Street Journal newspaper.

Norris said he was unaware of Abedi’s activities beyond praying and reading the Holy Quran and defended the role of the local Muslim community. “Since our Muslim community has come to Moss Side it has become a much better place,” he said. The arena attack was discussed at Friday prayers as the imam sought to reassure people and call for unity.

“Most of the news we’ve been getting from the mosque is: keep calm, this has happened, obviously we don’t agree with it, we don’t condone anything like this and it’s not what we practice,” a 25-year-old man, who asked not to be named, said afterwards.