Kuwait Times

Britain hunts terror network

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Britain yesterday to track down a network suspected of orchestrat­ing 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 Muammar Gaddafi. A French minister said he may have been radicalize­d in Syria, while a brother and father of Abedi was detained by authoritie­s in Libya.

“It’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigat­ing,” Manchester police chief Ian Hopkins told reporters, with five people now under arrest. The government announced a nationwide minute’s silence for Thursday morning in memory of the 22 people killed and dozens wounded in Monday night’s bombing. A girl aged just eight was among the victims of the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group.

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 23year-old man on Tuesday, police said they had taken three more men into custody yesterday in south Manchester, where Abedi lived. A fifth man who was carrying a suspect package was then detained in Wigan, west of the city. An armed raid was also carried out in Manchester city center yesterday, during which police said a nearby railway line had to be “briefly closed”.

Elders at the mosque in the Manchester area that is believed to have been frequented by Abedi insisted that his actions were wholly alien to their preaching, and pointed the finger at online radicaliza­tion. “The horrific atrocity that occurred in Manchester on Monday night shocked us all. This act of cowardice has no place in our religion,” said Fawzi Haffar, a trustee at the Didsbury mosque, after he and other mosque leaders held their own minute’s silence.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said Abedi had “likely” been to Syria after a trip to Libya, citing informatio­n provided by British intelligen­ce services to their counterpar­ts in Paris. “In any case, the links with Daesh are proven,” he said, using a term for the Islamic State group, as Libyan authoritie­s announced the arrest of one of Abedi’s two brothers and his father in the country. 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.

British Prime Minister Theresa May placed the country on its highest level of terror alert - “critical” - for the first time since June 2007, when it was sparked by an attack on Glasgow airport. The Changing of the Guard, a military ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace popular with tourists, was cancelled yesterday and the Houses of Parliament suspended all public events. Chelsea football club said they were cancelling their Premier League victory parade on Sunday, saying it would be “inappropri­ate”. — AFP

 ?? — AFP ?? MANCHESTER: Armed police secure a street in central Manchester yesterday following the May 22 terror attack at the Manchester Arena.
— AFP MANCHESTER: Armed police secure a street in central Manchester yesterday following the May 22 terror attack at the Manchester Arena.

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