Britain, Libya make terror arrests after Manchester attack

MANCHESTER: Britain raced Wednesday to track down a jihadist network suspected of orchestrating the Manchester concert attack, as the suicide bomber’s father and brother were arrested in Libya and grisly information emerged of how he engineered the deaths of young pop fans.

British soldiers fanned out to guard key sites as investigators tried to piece together the last movements of bomber Salman Abedi, a Manchester-born university dropout who died at the scene of Monday’s explosion.

Images published by the New York Times showed a detonator that he was said to have carried in his left hand, shrapnel including nuts and screws, and the shredded remains of a blue backpack from low-cost British sportswear brand Karrimor.

Abedi’s bomb killed 22 people, including children as young as eight attending the performance by US pop star Ariana Grande. His upper torso was flung several metres beyond the immediate blast vicinity, the New York Times said, quoting experts as saying the device appeared to be fairly sophisticated.

A French minister said Abedi may have been radicalised in Syria. His parents had reportedly fled the now fallen regime of Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

His father and younger brother were detained in Libya, authorities there said, after the father reportedly insisted on Abedi’s innocence.

“It’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,” Manchester police chief Ian Hopkins told reporters, with five people now under arrest.

The British government announced a nationwide minute’s silence for Thursday morning in memory of those killed and the dozens wounded in Monday night’s bombing. A girl aged just eight was among the victims of the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group.

– ‘Act of cowardice’ –

It was the latest in a series of deadly incidents across Europe claimed by IS jihadists that have coincided with an offensive on the group’s redoubts in Syria and Iraq carried out by US, British and other Western forces.

Officials said the 22-year-old Abedi had been on the radar of the intelligence community before the massacre and warned another attack “may be imminent”.

After arresting a 23-year-old man on Tuesday, police said they had taken three more men into custody on Wednesday in south Manchester, where Abedi lived.

A fifth man who was carrying a suspect package was then detained in Wigan, west of the city.

An armed raid was also carried out in Manchester city centre on Wednesday, during which police said a nearby railway line had to be “briefly closed”.

Elders at the mosque in the Manchester area that is believed to have been frequented by Abedi insisted that his actions were wholly alien to their preaching, and pointed the finger at online radicalisation.

“This act of cowardice has no place in our religion,” said Fawzi Haffar, a trustee at the Didsbury mosque, after he and other mosque leaders held their own minute’s silence.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said Abedi had “likely” been to Syria after a trip to Libya, citing information provided by British intelligence services to their counterparts in Paris.

“In any case, the links with Daesh are proven,” he said, using a term for the Islamic State group, as Libyan authorities announced the arrest of one of Abedi’s two brothers in the country.

Hundreds of armed military personnel meanwhile fanned out to take up guard duties at the British parliament and Buckingham Palace — a highly unusual sight on the streets of Britain since the end of the Northern Ireland conflict in the 1990s.

– NATO needs to ‘step up’ –

In light of the Manchester attack, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance had to “step up and agree to do more in the fight against terrorism” at summit talks set for Thursday.

The summit is to be attended by US President Donald Trump, who has lambasted NATO for not doing more against Islamist extremism and who called those responsible for the Manchester bombing “evil losers”.

The NATO leaders are expected to formally sign up to the US-led coalition against Islamic State, according to one diplomatic source.

British Prime Minister Theresa May placed the country on its highest level of terror alert — “critical” — for the first time since June 2007, when it was sparked by an attack on Glasgow airport.
The Changing of the Guard, a military ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace popular with tourists, was cancelled on Wednesday and the Houses of Parliament suspended all public events.

Chelsea football club said they were cancelling their Premier League victory parade on Sunday saying it would be “inappropriate”.

Manchester United players will wear black armbands at Wednesday evening’s Europa League final against Amsterdam club Ajax in Stockholm, where a minute’s silence will be held.

– ‘Sing with the angels’ –

The attack was the deadliest in Britain since July 7, 2005 when four suicide bombers inspired by Al-Qaeda attacked London’s transport system during rush hour, killing 52 people.

A Polish couple living in Britain were confirmed among the Manchester victims, along with 15-year-old Olivia Campbell, whose mother had issued heartrending appeals for help when her daughter was still missing.

Next to a photograph of Olivia, Charlotte Campbell wrote on Facebook: “RIP my darling precious gorgeous girl Olivia Campbell taken far far too soon. Go sing with the angels and keep smiling, mummy loves you so much.”

A total of 64 people are being treated in hospital, including 20 in critical care, medical officials said.

Twelve of the injured are aged under 16.

Nick Lewis said his daughter Freya had been through 10 and a half hours of surgery.

“Freya has been sewn, bolted, drilled and bandaged back together. It is going to be a long climb but we are on the first step,” he said. – AFP