We warned bomber was a danger 5 years ago
US sources say mass murderer was on radar Six arrests in huge UK terror crackdown
POLICE were tipped off by members of the Muslim community five years ago that Salman Abedi was a dangerous extremist.
Two people called a special antiterrorist hotline to report the suicide bomber’s horrific views, according to a community worker.
The source, who asked not to be identified, said: “All of the publicity is about Muslims not coming forward and this shows that they are coming forward and expressing their concerns.”
Both callers, who knew Abedi at college, said they had been worried that “he was supporting terrorism” and had expressed the view that “being a suicide bomber was OK”.
It is still unclear whether or not police acted on the tip-offs.
Abedi, a Briton with a Libyan family background, killed 22 people, including children, and injured 64 more after an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena on Monday night.
It has emerged American intelligence officials had been monitoring Abedi but could not track his movements after he left Britain for a trip to Libya.
According to US sources, the 22-yearold was known to the FBI after they detected “he was going a little crazy”.
CRAZY
Speaking to NBC News, one official likened Abedi to the Boston Marathon bombers – brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev – who before their attack in April 2013 were flagged to security services.
The source said: “This is a similar situation to the brothers in Boston. We wish we knew more about the travel.”
Another added: “We knew he [Abedi] was going a little crazy and left – but he went quiet and returned [to Britain] a few days ago, and we had no information about him in between.”
Abedi’s father Ramadan, 50, and younger brother Hashem, 20, were arrested by Libyan police in Tripoli late on Tuesday. It followed the earlier arrest of older brother Ismail, 23, in Manchester. And yesterday there were six further arrests.
Greater Manchester Police said they are trying to smash a “network” intent on wreaking carnage on the UK. A Libyan family of four – a man, his wife and their two sons – were held in Fallowfield, about a mile from Abedi’s former home. A fifth suspect, carrying a package, was arrested in Wigan.
And a woman was held last night when a block of flats was raided in the Blackley area of Manchester. Locals reported hearing a “huge bang” like a controlled explosion after masked counter terror police stormed the flats. Earlier, heavily armed police raided a city centre flat where a controlled explosion was carried out.
Meanwhile, it has emerged Abedi’s father Ramadan, also known as Abu Ismail, was a member of the al-Qaedalinked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was banned in the UK in 2005.
Abdel Wahab Gaydi, former member of LIFG and the Libyan General National Congress, told the Daily Mirror: “Ramadan was a member of the LIFG group but we never were close.”
Ramadan worked for the Libyan security service until 1991, when he fled the country for Saudi Arabia.
It was claimed that he joined LIFG in 1994, after moving to Manchester and starting a family with wife Samia. He
was a regular at Didsbury Mosque where he led the call to prayers. The family follows the hardline conservative Salafi version of Islam.
The Abedi family reportedly returned to Libya in 2008 and renounced membership of LIFG and extremism.
But Ramadan is understood to have been supportive of Islamic groups battling to control Libya after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in 2011. Yesterday the Mirror also spoke to one of Abedi’s closest friends at school. Our source sat next to him for two years during his media class at the Burnage Media Arts College. He recalled: “On school holidays he went to Libya and he joined the forces to fight Colonel Gaddafi.
“He hated that man. He once told me how he wanted to kill him – and kill him with his own bare hands.
“I used to be his friend on Facebook and I can vividly remember him posting pictures of himself brandishing weapons. He talked about Libya all the time.” And he revealed Abedi was a heavy cannabis user.
The pal said: “He was one of the four or five in the school that would smoke weed and cigarettes every day.
“He always tried to portray this image as a hard gangster type – wearing a large silver chain but no one was taken in.
“He really was off with the fairies sometimes. I used to sit next to him in media studies and he was very nice when he wanted to be.
“But he had an insidious side to him. He stopped talking to me when he overheard a conversation and realised I was Sufi [another form of Islam]. He was shocked and he barely spoke to me again.” Dominic Grieve, who chaired the Commons intelligence and security committee before Parliament was dissolved, said security services face “difficult” decisions about who to keep an eye on.
He said: “I appreciate questions are being raised about whether this man came to the attention of the security services earlier. That’s obviously going to be of interest in finding out exactly what happened.
“It’s very difficult for the security services if they do get such a reference to them – they have to make an assessment if this is someone who is actually likely to pose a risk of getting involved in a terrorist network.”
He tried to portray himself as a gangster but no one was taken in
SCHOOLFRIEND OF ARENA KILLER ABEDI