Libya and UK unite to uncover network

Tripoli authorities join hunt for those behind bombing

MANCHESTER // Libya’s UNbacked government said it was working with British authorities to identify the “terrorist networks” behind the Manchester concert bombing.

Interior ministry undersecretary Col Abdulsalam Ashour yesterday condemned the attack and said the Tripoli-based government’s anti- terrorist force was investigating.

British officials have identified the attacker as British-born Salman Abedi, 22, whose family is from Libya. Abedi’s father and younger brother were arrested in Tripoli on Wednesday. A statement by Libya’s special deterrent forces said the brother told investigators that he and Salman belonged to ISIL.

Before his arrest, their father, Ramadan Abedi, said his son was innocent. But Sky News Arabia reported that Abedi Snr was a member of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) whose leader Abdul Hakim Belhaj is closely associated with Ali Al Sallabi, the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Sallabi is thought to be living in Doha, Qatar with Qatari support.

Police in Tripoli said that Ramadan Abedi was a member of LIFG who found refuge in Britain before returning to fight against Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.

Manchester, in north- west England, is home to the largest cluster of Libyans in Europe, numbering 21,000 and the community became a hotbed of opposition to dictator Qaddafi, who was ousted in 2011. It contains a diverse range of people, from doctors to experienced members of the LIFG, which fought alongside Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“If you were a Libyan living outside Libya, you were probably someone who was not very friendly to Qaddafi,” said Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute security think tank in London. “Within that spectrum, you’d have everyone from secular nationalists to violent Islamists and jihadists, and because they are all fighting the same fight against the same regime, they tend to group together.”

British detectives are trying to work out where Abedi slotted into the picture of radicalisation among the overlapping circles of allegiance in and around Manchester.

The LIFG was founded by Libyans who fought against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan and, back home, sought to overthrow Qaddafi and replace his regime with an Islamic one. The group has been banned in Britain since 2005, meaning it is considered a terrorist organisation and it is an offence to be a member, support it or encourage support.

“In the case of the LIFG, quite a lot of them ended up coming to the UK, where they were taking advantage of the fact that the country has a fairly open approach to political dissidents,” said Mr Pantucci. Within the Abedi family, armed struggle was “fairly normalised”, he said.

Reda Fhelboom, a Libyan journalist who has spent many years living in Manchester, said Britain was paying an “entirely predictable” price for allowing Libyan extremists into the country. “Everyone knows that hundreds of extremists have taken refuge in Britain,” he said in Tripoli.

Libyan refugee Abdalraouf Abdallah, 23, was jailed for five and a half years in July last year, when he was convicted of trying to help other Manchester-based extremists to join ISIL. Abdallah lived in Moss Side in south Manchester, a short drive from the Abedi family home.

Meanwhile, fellow Mancunian Raphael Hostey, who left Britain in 2013 and is believed to have been killed in a drone strike last year, is thought to have recruited several young Britons to fight for ISIL and is thought to have formed a “significant connection” to Abedi.

Salah Suhbi, a member of parliament in Libya who grew up in Sheffield, northern England, said Manchester Libyans had grown increasingly concerned about radicalisation in the city.

“There’s a recruitment policy, we’ve been warning about it for years,” he said. “These people are recruiting from the second and third generation Libyan Brits or Arab Brits.” Mohamed Fadil, spokesman for the Libyan community in Manchester, said they were shocked by Monday’s attack but admitted there was a problem in their midst that needed to be tackled. Mr Fadil said the community met in the aftermath of the attack to address the issue. “The general consensus is there is a problem. Maybe we’re not reaching out enough to our young people,” he said.

As the manhunt continued for the network behind thebombing, US president Donald Trump threatened to prosecute those responsible for leaking investigation details to the US media.

London reacted furiously after sensitive details about the investigation into the attack appeared in the American press. The US media named Salman Abedi before his name was released in Britain and the following day, the pub

New York Times lished photographs of what is thought to be the detonator Abedi used to set off his nail bomb.

“We are furious. This is completely unacceptable,” a government ministry source said.

As a result of the leaks, Britain said it would no longer share intelligence regarding the attack. In Brussels for a Nato summit on yesterday, prime minister Theresa May confronted Mr Trump over the issue.

“She expressed the view that the intelligence- sharing relationship we have with the US is hugely important and valuable, but that the information that we share should be kept secure,” said the prime minister’s spokesman.