BOMBER’S PALS MAY STILL BE ON THE LOOSE..
Home Secretary warns terror probe ‘still full tilt’ 13 men in custody after police make more arrests
MEMBERS of twisted suicide bomber Salman Abedi’s terror network could still be at large, the Home Secretary has warned.
As police carried out more raids over the Manchester Arena attack, Amber Rudd yesterday said the operation was “still at full tilt”.
It comes as investigators re-evaluate the true extent of the covert relationship between Abedi, 22, and Islamic State recruiter Raphael Hostey.
Ms Rudd said of the terror probe: “It’s an ongoing operation. The operation is still at full tilt, in a way. Until the operation is complete, we can’t be entirely sure it is closed. The intelligence services are still collecting information about [Abedi] and about the people around him. “But I would not rush to conclusions, as you seem to be, that they have somehow missed something.” Police have seized 205 digital exhibits, understood to include phones and laptops, from 18 addresses searched so far. The probe showed little sign of slowing down as police arrested a 25-year-old man in the Old Trafford area of Manchester on suspicion of terror offences yesterday. And last night a 19-year-old man in Gorton was held in connection with the suicide bombing, following searches there and in Rusholme. There are now 13 men in custody over Monday’s attack.
Earlier, armed officers and military personnel, carried out a controlled explosion at a property in Moss Side.
Local Stephen Cawley, 59, said: “I thought it was a bomb, it was that loud.” He said a couple and their five children had lived there for a number of years.
Police handcuffed three people at the scene, all later de-arrested. A sign on the front door of the raided property said: “This is what the police has caused and we have nothing to do with what happened in the bombing attack.”
Ms Rudd’s warning comes after it emerged 23,000 jihadist extremists live in Britain. Around 3,000 of them are judged to pose a threat. Tarique Ghaffur, Met Assistant Commissioner at the time of the 7/7 bombings, yesterday suggested building specialist centres to house them. Britain’s over-stretched agencies are simultaneously running 500 operations to monitor these dangerous individuals.
Abedi and Hostey, 24, grew up less than a mile apart and remained friends after Hostey fled to Syria in 2013.
Using several aliases, they are understood to have messaged on Twitter and the AskFM website. Sources said the contact was over several months, resulting in Abedi being “placed under consideration” by intelligence.
The messages are understood to have stopped before 2016, leading to interest in Abedi being downgraded.
Hostey, killed by drone strike in Syria last May, had recruited a number of young men from Moss Side. A security source said: “Clear links are emerging
between Abedi and several other individuals with affiliations to IS. Thousands of young impressionable men throughout Britain have been contacted by ISIS handlers using social media channels.
“Some engage in chatter online but dozens have been radicalised enough to go to war zones in the Middle East to fight. Others go underground and drop off the radar. Overstretched intelligence agencies don’t have the resources to monitor everyone of concern.”
Security Minister Ben Wallace, who helped lead the Government’s response to the bombing, yesterday said internet companies must be urged to do more to tackle online extremism. He said: “I think the answer is we will be putting pressure on them.” Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood is believed to have sent messages using encrypted service Whatsapp two minutes before his attack. He killed five people last month. Ms Rudd said it was “completely unacceptable” terrorists had a “place to hide”. She also revealed temporary exclusion orders banning suspected jihadis from returning to the UK have been used for the first time. Intelligence agencies across the world are piecing together Abedi’s movements leading up last week’s atrocity. Four days
Until the operation is complete, we can’t be sure it is closed AMBER RUDD’S WARNING ON ABEDI NETWORK RISK
prior, he travelled from his parents home in Tripoli back to Manchester, via Istanbul and Dusseldorf.
His brothers Ismail, 23, arrested in Manchester and Hashem, 20, in Libya, both remain in custody.
Libyan authorities said they had been monitoring Hashem for months and claimed there is evidence he a member of a jihadist cell believed to have been planning an attack on the UN’s special envoy to Libya earlier this year.
Hashem also allegedly confessed to being aware of his brother’s plot and said they both swore allegiance to IS.
Dad Ramadan Abedi, 50 – previously a member of the proscribed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – is also still being questioned after being arrested in Tripoli. The son of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi warned Britain faces an unprecedented wave of terror from Libya, having rid the country of feared despot Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.
Khaled al-Megrahi yesterday said: “You make Libya like this. You will see a lot of terrorists in the UK and everywhere. It was Manchester, but tomorrow it will be some other place.”
President Donald Trump has told of Theresa May’s fury over US intelligence leaks after the bombing. He tweeted yesterday: “British Prime Minister May was very angry that the info the U.K. gave to U.S. about Manchester was leaked. Gave me full details!”