Jihadi who came back to kill
SUICIDE bomber Salman Abedi is thought to be the first Islamic State jihadi to have returned from abroad to carry out a terrorist atrocity in Britain.
The British-born 22-year-old was of Libyan descent and is known to have come back from a visit there only a few weeks ago.
IS has a growing presence in Libya and it is thought Abedi may have travelled from there to Syria, where the group has its HQ.
Police say he was part of a wider network, raising fears over a huge 400-strong army of fanatics who have returned from Iraq and Syria to threaten British streets.
Yesterday France’s Interior minister Gerard Collomb said both British and French intelligence services had information that Abedi had been in Syria.
Describing Abedi’s lnks to IS as “proven”, he said: “We only know what the British investigators have told us.
“All of a sudden he travelled to Libya and then most likely to Syria, became radicalised and decided to commit this attack.”
Dangerous
Home Secretary Amber Rudd also confirmed that Abedi was “known up to a point” to the intelligence services. A Muslim community worker told the BBC that two people who knew him at college tipped off officers after he expressed views backing terrorism and saying that “being a suicide bomber was OK”.
US officials were reported as saying the bomber’s family had also warned security services that he was “dangerous.”
NBC News quoted the official as saying: “We knew he was going a little crazy and left, but he went quiet.”
The official claimed Abedi had ties to Al Qaeda and that his bomb was big and sophisticated, adding: “It’s almost impossible to see he didn’t have help.”
The authorities are now rapidly retracing Abedi’s movements over the past few weeks in a bid to root out his network of associates.
They want to establish if he linked up with IS in Libya, if he received any training there and if and how he moved on to Syria.
Will Geddes, chief executive of security consultants ICP, said: “MI6 will be working with their counterparts in Libya to get any further intelligence about his connectivity and individuals he has been working alongside.”
Police are also studying CCTV footage to check claims that Abedi came back to Manchester via London shortly before the attack.
This has raised suspicions that he was collecting the bomb from an explosives expert or keeping a low profile to avoid arrest. There are known to be about 3,000 extremists in the UK including 400 battle-hardened British jihadis who have returned from fighting for IS in Iraq and Syria.
Last year the EU law enforcement agency Europol warned that if IS was seriously weakened or defeated in those countries the risk elsewhere would rise.
But monitoring even just one suspect returning from abroad requires huge levels of manpower.
Cannabis-smoking Abedi grew up in the leafy Manchester suburb of Chorlton, supported Manchester United and was known to drink in bars and play videogames.
He recently told friends he was looking forward to becoming an uncle and welcoming elder brother Ismail’s baby into the world. Yesterday a Libyan-born mother branded Abedi “inhuman”, saying: “The brothers couldn’t be more dissimilar. Salman was a uni dropout, always smoking and drinking and easily influenced.
“But Ismail had a good job as a computer expert and had recently got married.”
A former schoolmate of Abedi said he acquired mysterious new friends after a family trip to Libya, explaining: “He suddenly started hanging around with people I had never seen before.”
Abedi did two years of a business and management degree at Salford University but abruptly stopped going to lectures.
The Daily Express can also reveal brother Ismail, who was arrested the day after the attack, left his IT job two months ago.