Bomber’s dad, brother nabbed
POLICE scrambled to close down a network around the Manchester suicide bomber with arrests in Britain and Tripoli yesterday, as details about the investigation were leaked to US media.
British-born Salman Abedi, 22, killed 22 people at a concert venue on Monday.
Authorities believe he had help in building the bomb, which photographs published by the New York Times showed was sophisticated and powerful, and that his accomplices could be ready to strike again.
Manchester police arrested five men and one woman, bringing the total held for questioning to seven, and searched multiple addresses in northern and central England.
Explosives were found at one site.
Abedi, who was born in Manchester in 1994 to Libyan parents, blew himself up on Monday night at the Manchester Arena indoor venue at the end of a concert by US pop singer Ariana Grande attended by thousands of children and teenagers.
Abedi’s mother is a nuclear scientist, a family friend said.
Samia Tabbal, 50, graduated from Tripoli University “top of her class”.
She is also a close friend of the wife of former al-Qaeda commander Abu Anas Al-Libi, it is claimed.
Police in Tripoli yesterday arrested Abedi’s younger brother Hashem and his father Ramadan, 51, who said he did not expect the attack.
“I spoke to (Salman Abedi) about five days ago… there was nothing wrong, everything was normal,” Ramadan said, moments before he was arrested.
A spokesperson for the local counterterrorism force said Hashem was arrested on suspicion of links with Islamic State and was suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital.
The first arrest made in Britain on Tuesday was reported by British and US media to be Abedi’s older brother.
Earlier, Interior Minister Amber Rudd said the bomber had recently returned from Libya.
Her French counterpart, Gerard Collomb, said he had links with Islamic State and had probably visited Syria as well.
Authorities in Britain have become increasingly angered by US leaks from the investigation, including the bomber’s name on Tuesday and the photos of blood-stained fragments from the bomb yesterday.
British police chiefs said the breaches of trust between security service partners were undermining their efforts.
British Prime Minster Theresa May will meet US President Donald Trump at a Nato summit in Brussels today, but officials said she would cut short the second leg of her trip to the G7 summit in Italy.
The victims included an 8-year-old girl, several teenage girls, a 28-year-old man and a Polish couple who had come to collect their daughters.
A source close to the investigation said the focus was on whether Abedi had help putting together the bomb and on where it had been done. It appeared to contain carefully packed shrapnel and had a powerful, high velocity charge, according to leaked photographs published by the New York Times.
Grande’s representative said yesterday she was suspending her tour. The singer had been scheduled to perform two shows at London’s O2 arena this week.
Several high-profile sporting events are coming up in Britain, including the soccer FA Cup final at London’s Wembley Stadium and the English rugby club competition final at Twickenham on Saturday, and the Uefa Champions League final at Cardiff ’s Millennium Stadium on June 3.
Britain also has a national election scheduled for June 8.
Police said they knew the identity of all the people who lost their lives and had made contact with all the families.
They said they would name the victims after post-mortems.
The bombing also left 64 people wounded, of whom 20 were receiving critical care for highly traumatic injuries to major organs and to limbs, a health official said. – Reuters/Daily Mail