Manchester suspect's father and brother arrested, official says
Manchester suspect's father and brother arrested, official says, The father and the younger brother of the suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a concert venue in Manchester have been arrested in Tripoli, a spokesman for a local counter-terrorism force said on Wednesday.
The force detained the father, Ramadan Abedi, outside his home in the Tripoli suburb of Ayn Zara on Wednesday afternoon. A witness said he was handcuffed by armed men who drove him away in two unmarked vehicles. The force, known as Rada, detained the brother, Hashem Abedi, who was born in 1997, on Tuesday evening on suspicion of links to Islamic State, spokesman Ahmed Bin Salem said.
He did not give any details on the reasons why the father was arrested. But Hashem Abedi had been in touch with attacker Salman Abedi, Bin Salem said, and was suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital.
"We have evidence that he is involved in Daesh (Islamic State) with his brother. We have been following him for more than one month and a half," Bin Salem said. "He was in contact with his brother and he knew about the attack."
He said the younger brother had traveled from London to Tripoli on April 16. Salman Abedi, 22, was born in Britain to Libyan parents. Britain's interior minister said earlier that he had recently returned from Libya and had likely not acted alone. His father lives in Tripoli.
Meanwhile, British police hunted on Wednesday for potential accomplices who may have helped Salman Abedi build the bomb that exploded at a concert in Manchester and who could be ready to kill again.
As police tried to piece together the British-born Abedi's past, Prime Minister Theresa May said security officials had raised their assessment of the threat to Britain to "critical," indicating an attack is imminent.
Part of that threat assessment is the fear that Abedi, who blew himself up in the bomb attack, could have been working as part of a group with possible links to militants who have the competence to plot and execute suicide bombings. Police have so far announced five arrests and Abedi's home was raided by special forces about 12 hours after the suicide attack.
His brother, Ismail, was arrested. One of the five was carrying a package when he was arrested in the town of Wigan, 17 miles to the west of Manchester city center, police said.
A Libyan counter-terrorism force on Tuesday evening arrested Abedi's younger brother, Hashem Abedi, in the Libyan capital Tripoli on suspicion of links with Islamic State, a force spokesman told Reuters in Libya. Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins told reporters it was very clear that they were investigating what he called "a network."
He declined to give any further details on the investigation.
"The question is: Was he acting alone or was he part of a network of others who want to kill. That is what the investigation is focusing on," a source with knowledge of the British investigation told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "The concern is that there may be others out there who helped him to make the bomb."
"Making a bomb of this sort requires a certain level of expertise and competence," the source said. A second source said investigators suspect an accomplice helped Abedi build the bomb and then plot the attack.
British security services are now trying to work out what turned Abedi, the tall, skinny son of a devout Muslim who opposed former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, into a killer. He was born in Manchester in 1994 to parents of Libyan birth and raised in Britain. His parents had immigrated from Libya to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester, where they lived for at least 10 years.
Britain's interior minister, Amber Rudd, said Abedi had recently returned from Libya and her French counterpart, Gerard Collomb, said he had proven links with Islamic State and had probably visited Syria, too. Reuters was unable to independently verify the links to Islamic State or Syria.
FROM SON TO KILLER
According to the Kalam Research think-tank, which has an office in Tripoli, Abedi's father, Abu Ismail, left Saudi Arabia for London in 1992 and joined the Islamist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in 1994. Abedi's father and elder brother, Ismail, were active at Disbury Mosque in south Manchester, said a trustee of the mosque, Fawzi Haffar.
U.S. security officials said Abedi also had a sister named Jomana. Abu Ismail would read the call to prayer and Ismail worked as a volunteer, Haffar said.
"He (Abu Ismail) was devout as far as I know," Haffar added. "He's in Libya and has been for a while."
Abdalla Yousef, a spokesman for the mosque, said Abedi's father and the rest of the family apart from the two sons had returned to Libya in 2011 after the killing of Gadaffi.
Ismail was arrested by armed police in Chorlton, south Manchester. Abedi attended Burnage Boys' School in south Manchester from 2009 to 2011, the school confirmed. He was a keen Manchester United fan.
"He always had a bit of an attitude problem," Leon Hall, who went to school with him, told the Daily Mail newspaper. "I can’t say I really liked the man."
After leaving school, he went on to begin a business and management course in 2014 at the nearby University of Salford.
Alan Kinsey, 52, who lived in the house opposite Abedi, said he thought there had been just one man for the last 7-8 months and a couple had been living there as well before that.
He said the man used to wear traditional white Islamic dress, was aged in his 20s, 6 feet 2-4 inches tall and very skinny. "No one really interacted with him," Kinsey said
