Five missed chances to foil bomber
Britain on security lockdown as authorities face questions over multiple Manchester attacker warnings that failed to lead to action
THE Manchester suicide bomber was repeatedly flagged to the authorities over his extremist views, but was not stopped, it emerged last night. Coun- ter-terrorism agencies were facing questions after it emerged Salman Abedi told friends that “being a suicide bomber was OK”, prompting them to call the official anti-terrorism hotline.
Sources suggest that authorities were informed of the danger posed by Abedi on at least five separate occasions in the five years prior to the attack on Monday night.
The authorities were also aware that Abedi’s father was linked to a wellknown militant Islamist group in Libya, which is proscribed in Britain. Abedi also had links to several Britishbased jihadists with Isil connections.
Yesterday his father was detained by Libyan militia in Tripoli and the bomber’s brothers have separately been held on suspicion of terrorism offences.
The missed chances emerged on a day of heightened police activity as the hunt for Abedi’s terror cell intensified.
Officers raided the suspected “bomb factory” where it is feared he made the device and later arrested a white woman at a block of flats six miles away.
Last night the Home Secretary conceded Abedi was known to the intelligence services, with officials braced for criticism over the apparent failures.
In other developments yesterday:
♦ It emerged that security services were examining links between Abedi and an expert bomb-maker who had lived in the same street in Manchester.
♦ It was reported that one of Abedi’s final acts was to ring his mother, Samia Tabbal, who was a nuclear engineer.
♦ Leaked pictures last night emerged in the United States of fragments of the bomb, prompting a diplomatic row between Downing Street and the American security services.
♦ Britain was placed on security lockdown with soldiers on the streets and several high-profile events cancelled, as well as events this weekend – including the FA Cup final – having their security reviewed.
♦ The General Election campaign will resume with Ukip launching its manifesto today.
♦ A minute’s silence will be held at 11am today in memory of the victims.
♦ A female police officer was revealed as one of the bomb victims, as further identities were confirmed.
The missed opportunities to catch Abedi were beginning to mount up last night. The Daily Telegraph has spoken to a community leader who said that Abedi was reported two years ago “be- cause he thought he was involved in extremism and terrorism”.
Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said: “People in the community expressed concerns about the way this man was behaving and reported it in the right way using the right channels. “They did not hear anything since.” Two friends of Abedi also became so worried they separately telephoned the police counter-terrorism hotline five years ago and again last year.
“They had been worried that ‘he was supporting terrorism’ and had said that ‘being a suicide bomber was OK’,” a source told the BBC.
Akram Ramadan, 49, part of the close-knit Libyan community in south Manchester, said Abedi had been banned from Didsbury mosque after he had confronted the Imam who was delivering an anti-extremist sermon.
Mr Ramadan said he understood that Abedi had been placed on a “watch list” because the mosque reported him to the authorities for his extremist views.
A well-placed source at Didsbury mosque confirmed it had contacted the Home Office’s Prevent anti-radicalisation programme as a result.
A US official also briefed that members of Abedi’s own family had contacted British police saying that he was “dangerous”, but again the information does not appear to have been acted upon.
Abedi’s own family background might also have been a red flag to authorities. His father was a member of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
Yet Abedi was able to travel frequently between the UK and Libya, where it is feared he trained in bombmaking and possibly travelled to Syria.
His youngest brother, Hisham – who is photographed on social media wielding an automatic rifle, was yesterday arrested by the Libyans who suspect him of knowing about the Manchester plot in advance and plotting his own attack in Tripoli.
US authorities said Abedi was known to them prior to the atrocity while France’s interior minister said the 22-year-old had “proven” links with Isil and that both the British and French intelligence services had
information that the attacker had been in Syria.
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, disclosed that the intelligence services had been aware of Abedi, who had only in the past few weeks returned to the UK after visiting Libya.
Ms Rudd told Sky News: “We do know that he was known up to a point to the intelligence services.”
Ramadan Abedi, the suicide bomber’s father, who now lives in Tripoli, gave a series of interviews to the media yesterday in which he denied his son was to blame.
Mr Abedi told Bloomberg: “I was really shocked when I saw the news, I still don’t believe it.
“He was always against those attacks, saying there’s no religious justification for them.
“I don’t understand how he’d have become involved in an attack that led to the killing of children.”
But a friend of the family said Abedi’s parents had become so concerned about his behaviour they had ordered him to leave the UK and live with them in Libya.
Adel Elghrani said: “The father was so concerned he confiscated his passport. But then Salman went to his mother and said that he wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and she gave him his passport back and he came to England instead.”
Abedi flew back to Britain and carried out his deadly attack a few weeks later.
Counter-terrorism officers now believe that Abedi rented a flat through Airbnb in the days before the attack and stayed there until around 7pm on the night of the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena.
He carried the bomb to the music venue’s foyer in a rucksack and detonated it at just after 10.30pm as the American pop star was completing her last song.
Sources last night told The Daily Telegraph that there were two separate bomb factories, with the chemicals
‘I don’t understand how he’d have become involved in an attack that led to the killing of children’
mixed in the rented Airbnb flat in Granby Row before the bomb itself was assembled elsewhere.
It was not clear if the second flat had been discovered.
The photographs of the bomb fragments were leaked to The New York Times hours after Ms Rudd had said leaks of intelligence shared with the US authorities had to stop.
It prompted an outcry in Whitehall, with Ms Rudd and Jeremy Wright, the Attorney General, understood to be among officials who phoned their US counterparts to demand answers.
The Daily Telegraph understands that there is such serious concern about the leak that Theresa May will raise it with President Donald Trump when she sees him at a Nato meeting in Brussels today.
♦ Firefighters were prevented from helping victims of the terror attack for 90 minutes, it has been claimed. The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he will order a review into the decision.
Five fire engines were eventually dispatched but by then all the most dangerous work had been done, The Times reported.