British pursue attack ‘network’
Bombing in Manchester shows ‘sophistication’
MANCHESTER, England — Security forces rounded up more suspects Wednesday in the deadly Manchester concert blast and soldiers fanned out across the country to national landmarks as an onedge Britain tried to thwart the possibility of additional attacks.
Officials scoured the background of the British-born ethnic Libyan identified as the bomber, saying he was likely part of a wider terrorist network. Police searched for a possible clandestine bomb factory. Additional arrests were made both in Britain and in Libya in the bombing that killed 22 people and wounded scores more.
Among those taken into custody in Libya were the suspected bomber’s father and his younger brother, the latter of whom confessed to knowing “all the details” of the attack plot, Libyan antiterror authorities said.
“I think it’s very clear this is a network we are investigating,” Chief Constable Ian Hopkins of the Manchester police said as authorities raided British properties thought to be connected to Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old suspected bomber who grew up in Manchester and died in the attack.
British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Abedi “likely” did not act alone in the strike at the close of an Ariana Grande concert Monday night, and that he had been known to security forces “up to a point.”
Meanwhile, officials probed possible travel by the alleged bomber, looking for clues to new threats.
Residents of southern Manchester’s Libyan-British community described the attacker as an “awkward” young man and an “isolated, dark figure” who talked to few people and traveled back and forth between Britain and Libya. He was tall, thin and quiet, and often wore traditional Islamic dress, neighbors said.
Members of the Libyan immigrant community reported to local authorities that they feared Salman Abedi was turning increasingly radical, two friends of the family said. British security authorities have acknowledged that they were aware of Abedi, but said he was not considered a major terrorism risk.
Government officials said nearly 1,000 soldiers were deployed to Buckingham Palace, Parliament and other high-profile sites across the country. Britain’s terror threat level was raised to “critical” — the highest level — on Tuesday over concern another attack could be imminent.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said Abedi was believed to have traveled to Syria and had “proven” links to the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the attack. British officials, however, have not commented on whether Abedi had links to IS or other extremist groups.
British authorities were probing whether Abedi had ties to other cells across Europe and North Africa, according to two officials familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.
They said one thread of the inquiry involved pursuing whether Abedi was part of a larger terror cell that included Mohamed Abrini, otherwise known as “the man in the hat,” with connections to the Brussels and Paris attacks. Abrini visited Manchester in 2015.
“It looks like we’re not dealing with a lone wolf situation. There’s a network — a cell of ISIS-inspired terrorists,” said U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He said the bomb’s construction suggested a “level of sophistication” that might indicate foreign training.
Meanwhile, U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd criticized U.S. officials for leaking details about Monday’s terrorist attack, warning Britain’s ally that it should not happen again.
Six additional arrests were made in Britain on Wednesday — police there said that six men and one woman now are under arrest in connection with Monday’s deadly bomb attack — as the sprawling investigation extended to Libya, where Abedi’s father and 18-year-old brother were detained in Tripoli. The father, Ramadan Abedi, denied his son had links to militants in an interview with The Associated Press before he was taken into custody, saying, “We don’t believe in killing innocents.”
The elder Abedi was allegedly a member of the alQaida-backed Libyan Islamic Fighting group in the 1990s, according to a former Libyan security official, Abdel-Basit Haroun.
The Libyan anti-terror force that arrested the men said in a statement that the brother, Hashim Abedi, 18, confessed that he and his brother were linked to the Islamic State group and that he was aware of the arena bombing plan. The anti-terror force said the father had not been charged, but was taken in for questioning.
A second brother, Ismail Abedi, 23, was taken into custody in Manchester a day earlier.
A friend of the family who last spoke to the father on Tuesday said Salman and Hashim had changed after another youth — an 18-year-old Manchester resident also of Libyan descent — was killed in the northern British city a year ago.
The youngest known of those killed Monday night was 8. Besides the dead, the number of people who sought medical help after the attack was raised to 119. Officials said 64 people remained hospitalized, including 20 who were critically injured.