Amazon in dock over Manchester bomber
He bought chemicals using fake names with no security check – and they’re STILL on sale now
‘It should flag up a warning’ ‘Detect purchases by would-be terrorists’
MANCHESTER bomber Salman Abedi was able to buy the materials for his suicide device on Amazon, the Mail can reveal.
Counter-terrorism chiefs believe the 22-year-old extremist used false names to buy key components from the website.
He then assembled the bomb at home before detonating it at an Ariana Grande concert in May last year, killing 22 people including seven children.
Last night Amazon was in the dock after it emerged there were no proper security checks, and officials were not alerted about the purchases.
The online retailer faced further questions after Daily Mail reporters were able to buy several components which could help make a device like the one used by Abedi a year after the attack.
The ingredients, which are used with other chemicals to make an improvised explosive device, were purchased within ten minutes and without any security questions. It is not clear whether Abedi bought his materials directly from Amazon or through one of many thirdparty sellers on the site.
Government sources last night said they want the web giant to alert the security agencies when customers are ‘filling up their baskets’ with bombmaking materials.
Abedi’s Amazon history and that of those close to him have formed part of a police and security service investigation lasting months.
One line of inquiry is that he bought one item on the website as far back as January last year – five months before the attack – using the name of a family member.
His explosive device has been described as a relatively sophisticated construct made with nails, nuts and bolts. It was revealed last year that he used hydrogen peroxide to make the explosive TATP, nicknamed the Mother of Satan for its instability, which was also used in the 7/7 attacks on London. The Parsons Green attacker, Ahmed Hassan, 18, also shopped on Amazon to make the bomb he left on a crowded London Tube train in September.
His trial earlier this year heard how he detonated a device made from TATP after packing it with metal items bought from Aldi and Asda. He had hydrogen peroxide delivered to a friend’s address to avoid suspicion.
TATP is typically used by terror groups because it can be made using commonly available chemicals. Along with hydrogen peroxide, which is used in hair dyes, it includes other chemicals which the Mail will not name.
Mail journalists were able to purchase three of the ingredients used to make up TATP last week within minutes, without warnings or security checks that may have halted the transaction.
Hamish de Bretton- Gordon, former head of Nato’s Rapid Reaction Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Battalion, said Amazon needed to step up security checks. ‘For Abedi to be able to buy this stuff on Amazon seems crazy to me,’ he said. ‘There needs to be more regulation to stop this happening.
‘Amazon should really have a role to play in making sure these items are not sold to people who could then fashion a bomb.’
Admiral Lord West, a former security minister, said: ‘Surely there are some things where if someone wants to buy them it should flag up a warning.
‘Amazon needs to look at this and monitor what is being bought on its site.’ Former security minister John Hayes said: ‘It is time these companies such as Amazon step up to the mark and put the national interest ahead of any commercial interest.
‘They should be encouraged to do so and if this doesn’t work they should be made to do so.’
Last December David Anderson QC, the former independent reviewer of terror legislation, published a report on the four terrorist attacks in Britain between March to June 2017. He said there needed to be increased cooperation between MI5 and the police and the private sector ‘to improve the detectability and even the preventability of purchases of potential explosives precursors by would-be terrorists, as undertaken before the Manchester and Parson’s Green attacks’.
Although he did not specifically mention Amazon, it is understood the Government is now working with the web giant to help stop attacks using items bought online. As well as using Amazon, Abedi downloaded material from other websites about the chemical compound used in the bomb.
He also watched a bomb-making tutorial on YouTube before the attack. The bomb-making video ‘cookbook’ showed a masked extremist in a kitchen explaining how to build explosives with easy-to-obtain ingredients.
The products Abedi purchased were both legal and widely available. An Amazon spokesman said: ‘We share suspicious transaction reports with the Home Office counter terrorism team, but we cannot comment on the specific security measures that we have in place.’
Earlier this month it emerged Amazon was selling terrorist recruitment material and bombmaking manuals on its site, including books by Osama Bin Laden.
HOW much proof do internet firms need before they wake up to the fact that they are actively aiding and abetting terrorism?
We reveal today that Manchester bomber Salman abedi bought the materials for his deadly weapon through amazon and watched a video about how to assemble a nail-bomb on YouTube (which is owned by Google).
True, most of the ingredients also have harmless uses. But anyone buying them in combination is highly likely to be a terrorist.
The tech giants are rich as Croesus. With their gargantuan resources, is it really too much to ask that they apply proper security checks and alert the authorities to anyone buying these dangerous chemicals? If they refuse, they must be forced to do so.
Public safety also demands new laws to prosecute internet platforms which host bomb-making tutorials.
Twenty-two people were murdered in Manchester, including seven children. How many more must die before Google, amazon and the rest are made to bear responsibility for the vile material that courses through their sites? TReNDY BBC historian David Olusoga claims the British Museum has a moral imperative to return its ‘stolen’ treasures to their countries of origin – particularly the Benin Bronzes, which were taken during a military expedition to what is now Nigeria in 1897. But the Mail has this question: If these sublime sculptures had stayed in their home country – ravaged by civil war, religious strife and endemic corruption – where would they be now? Indeed, would they have survived at all?