UK cops arrest three more
POLICE yesterday arrested three more suspects linked to the attacker who killed 22 people at Manchester Arena, saying they were investigating the role of a terrorist network in the attack.
“I think it’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,” Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins told reporters when asked whether police are looking for a possible bomb maker.
Hopkins declined to elaborate and gave no details about the three arrests in south Manchester reported earlier yesterday.
The Times, citing CCTV footage recovered by police, said the attacker had placed a suitcase in the foyer of the concert hall shortly before the explosion.
The newspaper quoted a friend as saying Salman Abedi, 22, who also died in the explosion, had returned to Britain from Libya just days before the attack.
Speaking earlier in the investigation, Hopkins said detectives believed a lone attacker had been “carrying an improvised explosive device which he detonated, causing this atrocity.” British and French officials yesterday said Abedi probably had accomplices and had links to the Islamic State terrorist organization.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told French broadcaster BFMTV that British officials had said Abedi had been “radicalised” and had probably travelled to Syria during a trip to Libya.
Collomb said Abedi’s links with the Islamic State group were “proven.”
The British government has not confirmed those details about Abedi, whose parents are from Libya, but Home Secretary Amber Rudd told Sky News that he had been known to security services “up to a point” before Monday’s attack.
In a separate interview with BBC Radio 4, Rudd said it appears likely that Abedi was not acting alone.
“It was a devastating occasion ... more sophisticated than some of the attacks we’ve seen before, and it seems likely – possible – that he wasn’t doing this on his own,” Rudd said.
“So the intelligence services and the police are pursuing their leads in order to make sure they get all of the information.”
Poland’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that at least two Polish citizens died and one was among the 59 injured in the attack at the end of a concert by US singer Ariana Grande in the northern English city.
“We share the pain of the family and the loved ones of the victims and express our condolences,” the ministry said in a statement on Twitter. “Consuls have offered them assistance.”
The Press Association reported that it was a Polish couple who died after they went to the Manchester Arena to collect their daughter.
Many of Monday’s victims, who included an eight-year-old girl, have yet to be named, with desperate relatives still appealing for help in finding those missing.
Hopkins confirmed on Wednesday that an off-duty policewoman was among those who died.
The attack was the deadliest in Britain since 2005, when 56 people were killed in an attack on the London transport system.
Prime Minister Theresa May raised Britain’s terrorism threat level to the highest level of “critical” late on Tuesday, meaning a further attack is likely or “imminent.”
Armed police will increase patrols and military personnel will be deployed at events such as concerts and sports matches. One of London’s biggest shopping centres, Brent Cross, began searching all customers entering the complex on Wednesday, local media said.
“We would like to make customers aware that security procedures in the centre have been increased in line with advice from the security services,” the shopping centre said in a statement.
“Customers should remain alert but not alarmed, and should report anything suspicious to the police.”