THE BOMBER
College friends had called hotline to report their fears Abedi told people ‘being a suicide bomber is OK’
MUSLIMS in Manchester tried to blow the whistle on Salman Abedi five years ago, it was revealed last night.
Two of his college classmates – alarmed by his growing extremism – called an antiterrorist hotline to report his horrific views, a community worker said.
But it is unclear whether anything was done about their information.
The source, who asked not to be identified, said: “All of the publicity is about Muslims not coming forward.
“This shows that they are coming forward and expressing their concerns.”
He said that both callers said they had been worried that Abedi was supporting terrorism.
And they reported he had expressed the view that “being a suicide bomber was OK”.
One old school friend also claimed yesterday that Abedi had travelled to Libya to fight against Colonel Gaddafi before the dictator’s overthrow in 2011.
It is understood US intelligence officials had been monitoring Abedi’s movements but could not track him once he left for his recent trip to his family’s wartorn homeland.
According to sources in the US, the 22-year-old had become known to the FBI after they found out “he was going a little crazy”.
One intelligence official likened Abedi to the Boston Marathon bombers, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who were flagged up before their murderous attack in April 2103. The source said: “This is a similar situation to the brothers in Boston. We wish we knew more about the travel.” Another source said of Abedi, who returned to Britain just a few days ago: “We knew he was going a little crazy and left. “But he went quiet and returned a few days ago, and we had no information about him in between.”
Abedi’s father Ramadan and younger brother Hashem, 20, were arrested by Libyan police yesterday in Tripoli.
The killer’s other brother Ismail, 23, was held in Manchester on Tuesday. And there were five further arrests yesterday.
A Libyan family of four – a man, his wife and their two sons – were held in Fallowfield, Manchester, about a mile from Abedi’s former home. A fifth suspect, who was carrying a package, was arrested in Wigan.
Last night, there was more police activity as dozens of armed and masked counterterror officers raided a tower block in the Blackley area of Manchester.
Locals said police used drones in the operation and they heard a bang like a controlled explosion at 6.45pm.
Residents were barred from returning to their flats for more than an hour but were eventually allowed back in.
It has also emerged that the bomber’s father, also known as Abu Ismail, was a member of the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, banned in the UK in 2005. He worked
for the Libyan security service until 1991, when he fled the country for Saudi Arabia.
It is understood he joined LIFG in 1994 after moving to Manchester and starting a family with his wife Samia.
He was a regular at Didsbury mosque where he led the call to prayer. The mosque follows the hardline conservative Salafi version of Islam.
The Abedi parents are believed to have returned to Libya in 2008, with Ramadan renouncing his membership of LIFG and extremism.
But he is understood to have remained supportive of the Islamic groups battling to control Libya after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime.
One of Abedi’s closest friends at school told yesterday how he hated Gaddafi.
The source, who sat next to him in media class for two years, 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.”
The friend revealed Abedi was a heavy cannabis user between lessons.
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 chain. But no one was taken in.
“He really was off with the fairies sometimes. He was very nice when he wanted to be. But he stopped talking to me when he overheard a conversation and realised I was Sufi (another form of Islam).
“He was shocked and be barely spoke to me again.”
Dominic Grieve, the former chairman of the Commons intelligence and security committee, said last night that 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 or is actively getting involved in a terrorist network.
“The mere fact a reference is made doesn’t necessarily mean that several years down the line he would have to be a subject of interest.
“It all has to be, inevitably, prioritised in terms of where the security service sees the risk as being greatest.”