Only an expert with an extensive network could have made arena bomb
THE rucksack bomb that killed 24 people in Manchester was so complex that it could only have been made by an expert, leaked crime scene pictures suggest, as it emerged that an al-qaeda bomb-maker lived on the same street as suicide attacker Salman Abedi.
Photographs of bomb remnants found at the Manchester Arena show a trigger switch with a tiny circuit board soldered into the end, which experts say could point to a remote-control or timer built into the bomb to ensure an accomplice could detonate it if Abedi lost his nerve.
Investigators believe the bomb, packed with bolts and screws, was contained in a lightweight metal case carried in a black Karrimor rucksack with a blue lining. They also found the remains of a specialist 12-volt battery that is more powerful than high street brands used in previous attacks.
The crime scene photographs were leaked to The New York Times after being shared with US intelligence, prompting a furious response among ministers.
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, had publicly asked US law enforcement agencies to stop leaking shared intelligence and said she had been “very clear with our friends that that should not happen again”.
She said the leaks had been compromising the fast-moving investigation into what police have described as a “network” behind Abedi, but her warning was ignored as the extraordinary series of pictures was leaked in the US, prompting a major diplomatic row.
A senior Whitehall source told The Daily Telegraph: “Protests have been lodged at every level between the Brit- ish authorities and our US counterparts. They are in no doubt about our huge strength of feeling on this issue. It is unacceptable.”
The Telegraph understands that Theresa May will raise the matter with President Donald Trump when she meets him at a Nato summit in Brussels today.
Counter Terrorism Policing, in an unusally strongly worded statement, said it relied on close cooperation with its security partners. “When that trust is breached it undermines these relationships, and undermines our investigations and the confidence of victims, witnesses and their families.”
Congressman Adam Schiff, a senior member of the House intelligence committee, said: “If we gave up information that has interfered in any way with their investigation because it tipped off people in Britain – perhaps associates of… the bomber – then that’s a real problem and they have every right to be furious.”
Among the details leaked was a diagram of where the dead were found, with most of them forming a circle around the point of detonation.
Scenes of crime experts suggested the pattern showed that the bomb had been tightly and evenly packed with explosives and shrapnel.
Abedi’s upper torso was found some distance away from where the bomb went off, suggesting it was thrown forwards when the bomb went off on his back. A gap in the circle of bodies around him suggests his body shielded those directly in front of him from the worst of the blast.
The newspaper was also briefed that the trigger device, which appeared to be housed in a brass casing, had been held in Abedi’s left hand. A tiny circuit board and a red wire poking from one end of it could have been part of a remote control or timer system, and suggest a higher level of sophistication than the simple thumb switches and light bulbs used in the 7/7 attacks.
The final bomb component, identified by the remains of its label and casing, was a Yuasa 12-volt, 2.1 amp lead acid battery costing about £12. It looks like a small car battery and is more powerful than ordinary batteries.
Nuts and screws used as shrapnel, photographed lying on the tiled floor of the foyer, had travelled with such force that they penetrated metal doors and left deep gouges in brick walls.
The evidence helps to explain why the security services are so convinced Abedi was part of a wider terrorist cell, as the level of expertise needed to build such a device points to an expert bombmaker who could still be at large.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that an al-qaeda bomb-maker who fled to Libya lived in the same street as Abedi and that the security services are probing possible links between the two. Abd al-baset Azzouz was identified as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists by US authorities after setting up a training camp in Libya.
Both the Azzouz and Abedi families lived in the same street, Wilbraham Road, around the year 2000, according to records seen by The Telegraph.
After that they lived in homes never more than about a mile from each other as part of a tight-knit community of Libyan dissidents opposed to the rule of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Security sources say police are investigating whether Abedi could have been supplied with a bomb made by Azzouz, or taught to make one by him.
Azzouz was a prominent member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a banned terrorist group, during years spent in exile in Manchester. Salman Abedi’s father, Ramadan Abedi, was also named yesterday as a one-time member of LIFG in Manchester.
Azzouz, 50, a father-of-four, was arrested in the UK in 2006 by counterterrorism police but freed on bail.
He left the UK in 2009, travelling to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he became a close lieutenant of Ayman alzawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor as leader of al-qaeda. Questions have been raised over why he was allowed out of the country.
Two years later, Azzouz returned to Libya to run al-qaeda operations there. US authorities said in 2014 he was training 200 to 300 militants and described him as an expert in bomb-making.
A UN terror designation list published last year linked Azzouz to both Islamic State and to al-qaeda and suggested he was operating in the eastern part of Libya, which was an Islamic State stronghold.
Salman Abedi had made a number of trips to Libya in recent years and was there at the start of this month.
Intelligence agencies and counterterrorism officers are also exploring possible connections between Abedi and a group of Manchester jihadists who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State in 2013. Among them was Anil Khalil Raoufi, who was killed while fighting for Islamic State in 2014.
Raoufi, who was the same age as Abedi, had grown up in the same area and, according to reports at the time, had been a “regular attendee” at Didsbury Mosque. Abedi was also a regular worshipper at the same mosque. His father led calls to prayers there.
Didsbury Mosque insisted that Raoufi, who used the nom de guerre Abu Layth al-khorasani, was radicalised online. Raoufi travelled to Syria with Raphael Hostey, an Islamic State recruiter who was the same age as Abedi and grew up in the same area.
It also appears Abedi knew Abdalraouf Abdallah, another Briton with Libyan parents who grew up in the same area of Manchester.
Abdallah travelled to Tripoli in 2010 to join the uprising against Gaddafi but was shot and paralysed. Abdallah returned to the UK for surgery but was jailed last year for five-and-a-half years for helping jihadists to travel to Syria – including RAF veteran Stephen “Mustafa” Gray, who was arrested in Turkey trying to reach Islamic State. Gray was jailed last year.