Bomber said he was on a visit to Mecca

ATTACKER’S TWO BROTHERS AND FATHER

BOMBER Salman Abedi told his family he was heading on a pilgrimage to Mecca but instead travelled to Manchester to carry out the horrific attack, according to family friends.

The ‘awkward’ university dropout told his father he would visit Saudi Arabia before heading back to his family in Libya. However, he instead travelled to Manchester where he used an improvised bomb to kill 22 people.

A respected member of Manchester’s Libyan community told the M.E.N. that Abedi had been splitting his time between Manchester and Libya.

His family moved back to the north African country several years ago after the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.

Mohamed Fadir, a member of Manchester’s well-established Libyan community, said: “I knew of him and I knew his brother. There is nothing out of the ordinary about his family. His father used to do the call to prayer at the mosque.

“His father is a kind gentleman as is his brother, who got married last year and went on honeymoon.

“As for Salman, he was an isolated, reserved guy. Most of his friends were outside of the Libyan community.”

Others who knew Abedi are still struggling to understand how the former Manchester schoolboy with a ‘squeaky voice’ could have turned into a suicide bomber.

And as investigators arrested two of Abedi’s brothers, their father, Ramadan Abedi, spoke out to angrily deny that his son was a cold-blooded killer. However, within hours, he himself was arrested in Libya by police investigating if the family is connected to the attack.

Within hours of the bombing, Salman Abedi was identified by police as a key suspect. Detectives have been trying to re-trace his steps and look for any connection that could lead them back to a wider network of terrorists.

One of four children, Abedi was born and brought up in south Manchester and attended primary school in Moss Side. And as the fast-moving investigation continued, it emerged that the 23-year-old man arrested in Chorlton on Tuesday was Salman’s brother, IT worker Ismael Abedi. Yesterday, police in Libya arrested Salman’s younger brother Hashem Abedi on suspicion of Islamic State links. Just an hour later, their father was arrested in Tripoli.

Prior to his arrest, he had insisted in an interview: “We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us.”

Mr Abedi had reportedly fled to Manchester in 1993 after Gaddafi’s men issued an arrest warrant and had quietly raised his family in the city.

Those who knew the family say there was no indication that Abedi would follow the path of a suicide bomber.

He was a second year business student at Salford University but had dropped out. He had not been seen on campus for a number of months.

According to family friends, he had been living with his recentlymarried older brother in Manchester, but also regularly visited his parents in Libya.

Mohamed Fadir, who knew the family through the Libyan community, said the students at Salford University, where ‘awkward’ Salman studied, did not remember him on campus.

“He was not interested in education,” he said. “My guess would be that his father wanted him to go to university but he dropped out.

“He was quite isolated - one of those people.

“But in the Libyan community, nobody expected him to do something like that. Nobody saw that coming.

“He has been in Libya for the past few years. His father went back after the regime and Salman has been travelling back and forth.

“His father has spoken to community members in Manchester and he is so shocked and angry.

“Salman, when he left Libya, told his father he was going to Saudi Arabia to Mecca. His father expected him to be there and then return to Libya.

“The next thing they saw him on TV. It’s a huge shock to his family.”

Abedi had been a pupil at Burnage High School - a boys-only school with many pupils coming from a diverse population.

There was nothing to distinguish him from other pupils, although one former Ramadan Abedi