Salman Abedi — a young man thirsting for revenge

Abedi was named by British authorities the day after he detonated a bomb at the Manchester Arena

Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi was a British-born university dropout with Libyan jihadi links who, according to his sister, may have sought revenge for the deaths of Muslim children.

Abedi was named by British authorities the day after he detonated a bomb packed with nuts and screws at the Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and maiming dozens more at a concert by US pop star Ariana Grande. Born in Britain to a devoutly Muslim Libyan family, Abedi was an “isolated, quiet, reserved individual” according to Mohammad Fadil, a spokesman for the Libyan community in Manchester.

“Even when he came to mosque, he just kept to himself and quickly left. His friends are not in the Libyan community,” Fadil told AFP, adding that locals said Abedi had a history of drinking and smoking cannabis.

But the image of the awkward misfit stands in contrast to the picture which has emerged of the suicide bomber in recent days in British media of a man with links both to Islamist fighters in Libya and a Daesh group recruiter.

The Wall Street Journal cited a family friend saying that Abedi had travelled to Libya with his father in 2011 to join the Tripoli Brigade militia as it battled the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. He returned to Britain in 2014 with his mother, the friend said.

Abedi was known to British intelligence services, interior minister Amber Rudd said this week, without giving further details.

However, Saeed, a senior Mohammad figure from the mosque, told The Guardian newspaper that when he once gave a sermon denouncing terror, Abedi stared him down.

“Salman showed me a face of hate after that sermon,” Mohammad Saeed said of the 2015 encounter. “He was showing me hatred.”

Libya arrested Abedi’s father Ramadan and younger brother Hashim, who was also born in Britain, a relative and security sources said on Wednesday.

While the precise details of when and how Salman Abedi decided to turn to violent extremism remain unknown, his sister said he was loving but driven by a desire for revenge.

“I think he saw children — Muslim children — dying everywhere, and wanted revenge. He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge,” said Jomana Abedi, quoted by The Wall Street Journal. Such anger was reportedly heightened when one of his friends, 18-year-old Abdul Wahab Hafidah, was murdered in the Moss Side area of Manchester a year ago.

“I remember Salman at his funeral vowing revenge,” the family friend told the Journal.

— AFP