Suspect pleaded for forgiveness before blast, relative says
MANCHESTER, England — The alleged culprit in a deadly concert bombing was driven by what he saw as unjust treatment of Arabs in Britain, a relative said Thursday, confirming he made a final phone call in which he pleaded: “Forgive me.”
Salman Abedi was particularly upset by the killing last year of a Muslim friend whose death he believed went unnoticed by “infidels” in the U.K., said the relative, speaking on condition of anonymity over concerns for her own security.
“Why was there no outrage for the killing of an Arab and a Muslim in such a cruel way?” she asked. “Rage was the main reason” for the blast that killed 22 at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena on Monday, she said, speaking by telephone from Libya.
The new insight into Abedi’s motivation came as Britons faced stepped-up security, authorities pushed forward with raids and the investigation extended across Europe into Libya, where most of the suspected bomber’s family lived.
The number of arrests in the U.K. ticked up to eight as British Transport Police said armed officers would begin patrols on some trains because of an increased threat of terrorism. Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said, without elaborating, that searches of suspects’ homes brought “very important” clues in the probe of the bombing.
Authorities chased possible links between Abedi and militants in Manchester, elsewhere in Europe, and in North Africa and the Middle East. They were exploring potential ties to Abdalraouf Abdallah, a Libyan jailed in the U.K. for terror offenses, and to Raphael Hostey, an Islamic State recruiter killed in Syria.
Abedi’s family remained a focus, too, with a brother in England, his father and another brother in Libya among those detained. Abedi’s father was allegedly a member of the al-Qaida-backed Libyan Islamic Fighting group in the 1990s — a claim he denies.
Ahmed bin Salem, a spokesman for the Special Deterrent Force in Libya, said Abedi placed his final call to both his mother and a brother. Abedi’s relative said he had spoken with his brother only, asking that his message be relayed to his mother.
“He was giving farewell,” bin Salem said.
Abedi’s relative said the suspected bomber was pained by the killing of Abdel-Wahab Hafidah, an 18-year-old who news reports say was chased by a group of men, run over and stabbed in the neck in Manchester in May 2016.
“They wouldn’t let you share bread with them,” she said Abedi told her. “They are unjust to the Arabs.”
Bin Salem said Abedi’s mother told investigators her son left for the U.K. four days before the attack after spending a month in Libya. Based on the account from a younger brother, investigators think Abedi used the internet to learn how to make a bomb and “seek victory for the Islamic State,” bin Salem said.
The allegations clashed with what Abedi’s father said a day earlier in an interview with the AP. “We don’t believe in killing innocents,” Ramadan Abedi said before he was detained in Tripoli.
Around the U.K., many fell silent Thursday for a late-morning minute of tribute to the victims.
In Manchester’s St. Ann’s Square, where a sea of floral tributes grew by the hour, a crowd sang the hometown band Oasis’ song “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Queen Elizabeth II visited victims of the attack at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, telling 14-year-old Evie Mills and her parents: “It’s dreadful. Very wicked, to target that sort of thing.”
Fifteen-year-old Millie Robson, wearing one of Grande’s T-shirts, told the queen she had won VIP tickets to the pop star’s concert. She recalled leaving the concert when the blast struck and remembered an intense ringing in her ears, but not being entirely aware that she was bleeding badly from her legs.
The teenager credited her father’s quick action in picking her up and tying off her wounds to stem the bleeding.
“Compared to other people I’m quite lucky really,” she said.