Bomber’s brother confesses plot
BRITAIN: The father and younger brother of the suicide bomber who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester have been detained in Libya, where anti-terror authorities say the brother confessed to knowing ‘‘all the details’’ of the attack plot.
Hashim Abedi, the 18-year-old brother of Salman Abedi, 22, was detained in Tripoli on Tuesday night, a spokesman for a Libyan anti-terror force said yesterday.
Britain-born Abedi blew himself up on Monday night at the Manchester Arena indoor venue at the end of a concert attended by thousands of children and teenagers. The 22 victims included an eight-year-old girl, several teenage girls, a 28-year-old man and a Polish couple who had come to collect their daughters. Dozens more remain injured, some critically.
The Special Deterrent force said in a statement on its Facebook page Hashim Abedi had told investigators after his arrest that both he and his brother belonged to the Islamic State group. ‘‘The brother was aware of all the details of the terrorist attack,’’ the statement said.
The father of both men, Ramadan Abedi, 51, was detained yesterday shortly after giving an interview from Tripoli in which he said Salman, who died in the Manchester attack, had been planning a religious pilgrimage to Mecca.
The father has not been charged and was only detained for questioning, Special Deterrent force spokesman Ahmed bin Salem said.
Prior to his detention Ramadan Abedi confirmed British authorities had arrested another son, Ismail, 23, on Tuesday as part of the concert attack probe.
‘‘We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us,’’ the senior Abedi said. ‘‘We aren’t the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Koran, but not that.’’
Ramadan Abedi said the last time he spoke to Salman was five days ago as he was getting ready for a trip to Saudi Arabia to per- form Umrah, a smaller pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.
‘‘He sounded normal. There was nothing worrying at all until two days ago [when] I heard the news that they suspect he was the bomber,’’ Abedi, a father of six, said.
He said Salman visited Libya six weeks ago and returned to Manchester after winning a cheap ticket to Umrah. He said Salman, who was in his second year of studying economics, was planning to return to Libya to spend the holy month of Ramadan with the family.
He denied his son had ever been to Syria.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said Salman Abedi was believed to have travelled 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.
The senior Abedi worked as a security officer under Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s rule. In 1993, he fled the oil-rich North African country after he was accused of helping Islamists by tipping them off before police raids.
He denied having ties to any of Libya’s militant groups, including the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, which was linked to al-Qaeda.
‘‘This is nonsense,’’ he said, adding that under Gaddafi, ‘‘anyone who went to a mosque raised question marks.’’
In 2011, Abedi returned to Libya during the mass uprising that descended into a civil war and ended with Gaddafi’s ouster and death. Libya has since sunk into lawlessness, with rebels turning into militias and undermining suc- cessive transitional governments.
The Abedi family is close to the family of al-Qaeda veteran Abu Anas al-Libi, who was snatched by US special forces off a Tripoli street in 2013, then died in US custody in 2015.
British authorities were also probing whether Salman 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.
They said one thread of the inquiry involved pursuing whether Abedi could have been 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.
Police made further arrests in Manchester as the investigation focused on tracking down a network of accomplices who authorities fear could strike again.
A source said British investigators were hunting for anyone who may have helped build the suicide bomb and who could be ready to kill again.
‘‘I think it’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,’’ police chief Ian Hopkins said.
A source close to the investigation into the bombing said the focus was on whether Abedi had received help in putting together the bomb and on where it had been done.
The BBC reported that security services thought the bomb was too sophisticated for Abedi to have built by himself.
Grande was scheduled to perform two shows at London’s O2 arena this week, but the singer’s representative said on Wednesday she was suspending her tour to assess the situation and to ‘‘pay our proper respects to those lost’’.
Britain’s official terror threat level was raised to ‘‘critical‘‘, the highest level, late on Tuesday, meaning an attack was expected imminently.
With just over two weeks to go until a national election on June 8, all campaigning was suspended after the attack, although major parties said they would resume some activities today and nationallevel campaigning tomorrow.
Up to 3800 soldiers could be deployed on Britain’s streets, taking on guard duties to free up police to focus on patrols and investigation.
An initial deployment of 984 had been ordered and soldiers were seen at the Houses of Parliament, May’s Downing Street residence and at the London police headquarters at New Scotland Yard. — AP