Police ‘hold nine key figures’ in Manchester terror network
POLICE have rounded up ‘a large part’ of the suspected Libyan terror cell, it was revealed last night.
Officers said they had arrested the ‘key players’ in the Middle England gang of alleged jihadis who helped Salman Abedi, 22, wreak horror in Manchester.
After a series of dramatic raids in the Midlands and the North, nine people were in custody last night, all of whom are of Libyan descent. Incredibly, unlike fanatics returning from Syria – who are immediately flagged as major terror risks – dozens of Manchester youngsters have apparently been free to join the front-line in Libya without attracting as much attention. The developments came as it emerged: Abedi was one of a group of young men from Manchester who went to fight in Libya with their fathers – before switching allegiance to Islamic State;
His brother Hashem, 20, has been ‘singing like a canary’ in custody in Libya;
A ‘ bomb factory’ was found in Abedi’s old flat in Merseyside;
A barber shop run by the killer’s cousin was searched for possible bomb-making chemicals.
Last night Britain’s top counterterrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, said detectives had made ‘immense’ progress since Monday night’s atrocity.
He said officers were ‘very happy we’ve got our hands around some of the key suspects’, adding that police had made ‘ significant’ arrests and ‘finds’, and had got hold of a ‘ large part’ of the suspected network.
Mr Rowley said it was likely further arrests would follow.
‘We need to understand the whole network and how they acquired and built the bomb,’ he said.
‘Clearly we haven’t covered all the territory we want to, but we have covered a large part of it. Our confidence has been increasing over recent days.’
All those arrested were in Britain lawfully. Most were either born in the UK or Libyans with dual nationality who were able to come and go with impunity.
Abedi spent his school holidays in war-torn Libya – where he may have learnt to kill as young as 16. He and his brothers are understood to have spent the 2011 summer holiday waging war on Colonel Gaddafi during the Arab uprising with their father Ramadan Abedi, 51, part of a group calling themselves the ‘Manchester Fighters’.
Abedi’s younger brother Hashem was 14 and in Year 9 when he went, according to a neighbour of the family. Mohammed Mubarak, 18, said: ‘They wanted to get rid of Gaddafi, that’s all.’
But some later switched allegiance to Islamic State.
The Mail has learnt that in 2014, Salman Abedi was injured in battle. He had left Manchester College in 2013 – having punched a girl for wearing a short skirt and admitting he had ‘anger management issues’ – and travelled to eastern Libya to join Islamist fanatics trying to impose sharia law in Benghazi and Ajdabiya.
During fighting against moderate forces led by Gaddafi opponent Khalifa Haftar, Abedi sustained an unknown injury that was serious enough for him to be taken to hospital in Turkey, travelling under a false passport. Yet by September 2014, about four months later, he was back in Manchester starting his Salford University course.
A former schoolfriend from Burnage Academy for Boys told the Mail: ‘A lot of young North Africans raised in Manchester were involved in these revolutionary uprisings in their home countries (Libya and Egypt).’
Abedi – described by former teacher Mark Roberts as ‘a dislikeable boy who displayed average laziness, mediocre rudeness and refused to complete his coursework on time’ – joined his family in Libya several times.
Hashem Abedi, 20, was arrested in Libya on Tuesday, and according to sources there, has been ‘singing like a canary’, naming names which are being passed on to MI6 and MI5. Within hours of the outrage, Abedi’s older brother Ismail, 23, was arrested outside a Morrison’s supermarket in South Manchester and his flat in nearby Whalley Range was raided, while heavily armed police stormed the Abedi family’s former home in nearby Fallowfield.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, at least one member of the Forjani family – thought to be cousins of the bomber – was held at their home in Fallowfield.
They include ‘Abs’ Forjani, who runs the Fade Away barber shop in Moss Side, South Manchester, which was raided yesterday.
Pictured with Abedi on a Libyan beach about seven years ago, his real name is believed to be Abdallah Forjani, aged 24. Police were seen removing bags of evidence from the salon, where Abedi was a regular visitor. Two other men aged 21 and 18 held on Wednesday are believed to have been arrested at the same address. Abdallah lives with brothers matching these ages: Abderahman, 21, and Alharth, 18.
Yesterday police searched Lorenzo Pizza in St Helens, Merseyside, where director Mohamed El Hudarey revealed his colleague Aimen Elwafi was among those in custody. Mr El Hudarey claimed
‘Got our hands around key suspects’ Abedi left the flat in a hurry
Elwafi had handed himself into police after recognising the bomber on television and realising he had rented a flat to him for two months for £700 earlier this year after he responded to his advert on Gumtree. He said that when Elwafi entered the flat in Somerton Court, after Abedi left, he found curtain fabric cut into squares, a strip of metal, and the fire alarms disabled.
Mr El Hudarey said Elwafi thought something odd had been going on but it had never occurred to him that it might have been used as a bomb factory.
‘We thought maybe they’d had parties in the flat, and were maybe drinking alcohol,’ he said.
He added that Abedi had left the flat in a hurry around March, saying he needed to get a flight to Libya. He left many of his belongings behind.
On Wednesday, a 33-year-old man described by witnesses as white was arrested in a street in Wigan while carrying a suspicious package. The same day, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, 22-year- old Ayub Elshetwi was arrested at gunpoint, with police later searching the nearby home where he lives with his father, Naser Elshetwi, 48, who earlier this year spoke of how he
had been shot in Libya in a violent kidnap attempt.
Meanwhile a 34- year- old woman was arrested at a block of flats in Blackley, North Manchester, only to be released without charge hours later. The flat is understood to have been rented out earlier this year to Salman Abedi by another Libyan man, Aimen Elwafi, 38, who according to a friend was himself arrested at an address in Blackley.
On Thursday, a 16-year- old boy was arrested in Withington, South Manchester, only to be released without charge. Bomb disposal teams were sent to an address in Wigan and residents evacuated, while police raided properties in Moss Side and Withington.
In the latest arrest early yesterday, an unnamed 30-yearold man was held after an armed 2am raid at an address in Moss Side half a mile from the barber shop. Residents in Dorset Avenue said about eight men of Middle Eastern appearance had been crammed in to the terraced property.
Last night, plain- clothed police wearing bulletproof vests swooped to arrest an 11th suspect on a Manchester bus. The 44- year- old was detained as the bus travelled through Rusholme towards the city centre at about 7pm.
All those held were detained on suspicion of offences contrary to the Terrorism Act.
The large number of Libyan jihadis who were in Manchester when Abedi was growing up included Anas Al-Libi, a top Al Qaeda commander, who
Armed raid at 2am
even apparently shared a house with the Abedi family.
Hisham al Hady, another Mancunian Libyan, has told of swapping watching the X Factor at home to going to Misrata in 2011 to fight from 6am until 10pm for 55 days, describing the experience as ‘beautiful’.
Another Manchester man accused of joining the conflict in Libya is Salah Mohammed Ali Aboaoba, who once attended the same Didsbury Mosque as Abedi.