BOMBER FROM A RED BRICK SEMI MOMENT HIS BROTHER WAS HELD
UK-born jihadi was son of Libyan refugees Visited Middle East and was known to MI5 He chanted in street and had ‘face of hate’ University drop-out quit anti-IS mosque
The suicide bomber responsible for the worst UK terror attack since the 7/7 atrocity 12 years ago was a British-born jihadi from a family of Libyan refugees, it emerged last night.
Salman Abedi, 22, was known to the security services before he walked into Manchester Arena on Monday night and detonated a bomb packed with nails, nuts and bolts, killing 22 people including children as young as eight.
There were claims that Abedi may have spent time in a Middle east conflict zone, where he may have received terrorist training.
Yesterday, police carried out a controlled explosion at his home in the Fallowfield area of south Manchester following a dramatic raid by dozens of officers on the red-brick semi.
Chemical experts were seen outside with specialist instruments amid fears that he could have obtained radioactive material. It was also claimed last night that he had travelled by train from London to Manchester on Monday in advance of the attacks. It raised suspicions that he may have met co-conspirators or been supplied with his explosive device by an asyet-unidentified bombmaker.
Police yesterday recovered CCTV of Abedi striding into the Manchester Arena with what officers believe was a home-made bomb
Amid a series of other revelations, it was claimed that his father – an airport security officer – had left the UK to fight in Libya. Sources also said his mother had raised concerns about her son’s radical views before she herself left for Libya.
In addition, police were quizzing his brother Ismail, 23, on suspicion of involvement in the bombing.
Although Abedi was known to the security services, he was not under surveillance and officers had no inkling he was building a bomb. Last night a chilling picture emerged of the terrorist who wore a ‘face of hate’ as he grew up in an anonymous suburb of Manchester.
Born in Manchester in 1994, the third of four children, his parents were Libyan refugees who came to the UK to escape the Gaddafi regime and his father is a suspected fighter who left the UK in 2011 to try to overthrow the Libyan leader.
Ramadan Abedi, an airport security officer who is thought to have worked at Manchester Air- port, emigrated to London with his wife Samia Tabbal, 50, before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester where they settled in a housing association-owned home about two miles from the scene of Monday night’s terror attack.
Friends and neighbour said Abedi appeared to be a normal football-mad teenager who was massive Manchester United fan and spent hours playing computer games on the PS4
But everything changed in 2011 when his father abruptly left his job and home in the anonymous suburb to fight in Libya, leaving his family to fend for themselves, according to a local imam. Abedi and his brothers appear to have followed in his footsteps by sharing stories of British jihadis fighting in Syria on social networks and even praying in the street.
Within hours of the attack carried out by Abedi, police arrested his brother Ismail, 23, outside a Morrison’s in Chorlton, Manchester and last night they were quizzing him on suspicion of involvement in the bombing.
The IT manager, who is married to a maths teacher, worked for Park Cake Bakeries in Oldham until January. It is believed that
Ismail, who worked as a teaching assistant giving Arabic classes and IT support at Didsbury mosque Quran school, was once reported to a counterterrorism unit after concerns were raised by members of the Muslim community.
Abedi and his family were well known at their Didsbury Mosque just a few minutes’ drive away from their modest £150,000 home.
Last night a source suggested anti-terror officers also tried to engage with Abedi, but he refused to co-operate. ‘Salman Abedi is a troublemaker, that is the understanding we have from the community,’ he said. ‘He is a loose cannon, someone who is troubled.’
The imam of Didsbury Mosque, Mohammed Saeed revealed Salman stopped going to the mosque in 2015 as he objected to antiIS comments.
He said: ‘Salman used to come to the mosque occasionally, he wasn’t particularly friendly towards me because he didn’t like my anti-IS sermons.
‘He didn’t like what I was saying and showed me the face of hate. He came to the mosque less and less after that.’
One neighbour claimed they heard Abedi chanting Islamic prayers at the home just weeks before the concert hall atrocity.
Abedi is thought to have attended multiple schools in Manchester Claremont Primary School including Burnage Academy and Stretford Grammar School.
Leon Hall, who went to school with Abedi, told Mail Online he saw the killer last year and said he had grown a beard. He also said the jihadist was a keen Manchester United fan.
Mr Hall said: ‘I saw him last year and he had a beard thing going on. We didn’t speak but just nodded to each other. I don’t remember seeing him with beard before.’
Hall said they grew up playing together on the street around their home. He and I had a tussle many years ago when we were kids. It was over nothing, but he always had a bit of an attitude problem. I can’t say I really liked the man.’
He went on to study at Salford University. A source said: ‘He was completely off the radar. He turned up for lectures for two years and then just stopped coming.
‘He was living at home, so he Search: A forensics officer in mask and suit carrying a guide to chemicals, inset was very much not living the stuhe had done. Few suspected that dent experience. Abedi, a slightly withdrawn,
‘He was not known to the univerdevout young man, always respectsity Islamic society.’ ful to his elders, would become a
The source said Abedi began mass murderer. his business and management One friend said: ‘His parents are course in 2014 and attended lec
in Libya at the moment, they seem tures for two years but then stopped going. He would have to go backwards and forwards a lot. graduated this summer. I’m shocked. It’s crazy to think
Last night one friend of Abedi’s said it was ‘crazy’ to consider what
he could do this, he didn’t show any outward signs of being radicalised. I had noticed him being a bit more religious perhaps of late, going to the mosque more to pray and walking his little brother to school, being a bit more responsible. But nothing to suggest he could do something so terrible.’
A 16-year- old cousin of Abedi’s who lives near the family house said: ‘He went to Libya two months ago. We go every summer.
‘I don’t really believe it [that he carried out the attack]. I know him and I know what type of person he is. He’s a nice guy, we play [war videogame] Battlefield on the PS4.’
Last night neighbours described their shock as police carried out a controlled explosion.
Neville Edwards, who lives near the house where the controlled explosion was carried out, said his mother’s house in the next street was shaken by the blast. ‘She felt the ground beneath her shake. She
‘They seemed quite Western’
was absolutely terrified.’ Debbie Smith, 53, a chef who lives opposite the Abedi house, said: ‘I was here when the police blew the door, it was loud. I had just turned a television programme on, it was about 12pm. It sounded like they were blowing my own door in.
‘It went boom! It was frightening after what happened last night, it frightened the life out of my dog.
‘The Abedi family have lived here a long time. At one point when Gaddafi got killed they put a massive flag on the roof of their house, the police had to come to tell them to take it down. I think they were glad he was dead.
‘We never had any problems with the family. They seemed quite Western, they wore Western clothes. The men sometimes wore those long shirts on holidays, the women didn’t wear veils, just head- scarves. It’s frightening to think that we have been living opposite a suicide bomber.’
Forensics officers were seen emerging from the killer’s property carrying a booklet called Know Your Chemicals. Neighbour Lina Ahmed, 21, said Abedi had been seen in the street chanting.
‘They are a Libyan family and he has been acting strangely. A couple of months ago he [Abedi] was chanting the first kalma [Islamic prayer] really loudly in the street. He was chanting in Arabic.
‘He was saying “There is only one God and the prophet Mohammed is his messenger”.’
Abedi’s younger brother Hashim, now 20, has posted comments on IS-supporting sites. He showed an interest in Reyaad Khan, the Welsh jihadi killed in a drone strike, and commented on a newspaper article when Khan’s mother appealed for her son to come home in 2014 before he was killed. Hisham wrote: ‘Inshallah we go together, man.’
Abedi’s sister Jomana, 18, attended the school in Whalley Range that hit the headlines in 2015 when twin pupils, aspiring medical students Zahra and Salma Halane, left their homes and moved to IScontrolled Syria.
Last night counter-terror police, assisted by MI5, were urgently piecing together the bomber’s background to see whether he had any help in planning the outrage. Police are understood to have recovered CCTV video of the attacker walking into Manchester Arena where he detonated a bomb. It shows the explosion was deliberate and caused by a device that may have been contained in a bag, a source said.
The device is described as homemade and crude, but stable enough to be transported and explode with devastating effect. It is believed to have been constructed in Britain.
The attacker, who struck on the fourth anniversary of the killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south- east London, was carrying an identity document on him, sources said.