Salman Abedi: Police probe Libyan links of Manchester bomber who killed 22

Security agencies are investigating whether Salman Abedi, named as the Manchester suicide bomber responsible for the slaughter of 22 people, including an eight-year-old girl, had any links with the Isis group which was set up in Libya.

Abedi, 22, who was known to the security authorities, is reported to have been born in Manchester of Libyan parents, Ramadan Abedi and Samia Tabbal, who had arrived as refugees to escape persecution from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

An unnamed school friend of the Salford University dropout told The Times Abedi had just arrived back from Libya, a country where terrorist training is available from jihadist camps.

"He went to Libya three weeks ago and came back recently, like days ago," the friend is reported to have said.

It is believed some of the family visited Libya recently and a 23-year-old man, understood to be a family member, was arrested today.

Trustees at Didsbury Mosque said Abedi’s father, who used to be a regular worshipper, had returned to live in Libya.

Isis has claimed “credit” for the Manchester bombing, which targeted victims as they left an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena on Monday night.

The group routinely takes responsibility following terrorist attacks in the West, although no evidence has been produced so far to support the claim.

The link with Libya emerged last night as police and security forces worked to establish how Abedi was radicalised and what support he may have received in committing the deadliest terror attack ever launched in the north of England.

Security sources questioned whether Isis, if it was indeed responsible for the attack, would sacrifice the life of a bomb-maker, thus raising the possibility that Abedi was supplied with the device by someone else or by a group.

The explosive device has been described by security sources as being a relatively sophisticated construct made with nails, nuts and bolts. This was the most serious terrorist attack in Britain since the 7/7 suicide bombings taking 52 lives, not just in the sheer number of the victims, but also the fact that a suicide bombing was used to carry out the atrocity.

It began at 10.33pm on Monday, just minutes after Grande left the stage. The bomb was triggered as her young fans made their way out of the arena, catching them in the foyer.

Video footage showed panic spreading quickly among the crowd still inside the venue. Parents and children poured, screaming, toward the exit and safety, as hundreds of police officers and paramedics raced in the opposite direction.

An eight-year-old girl, Saffie Roussos, was among the dead. The head teacher of her school called her “a beautiful little girl in every aspect of the word”. Grande, herself only 23, said she was “broken”. “From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry. I don't have words,” she tweeted.

The first confirmed victim was Georgina Callander. On its website, Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy in Croston, north west of Manchester, called her “a lovely young student who was very popular with her peers and the staff”.

Some 59 people were injured in the explosion and, as the initial chaos subsided, families searched desperately for missing loved ones. Scottish teenager Laura MacIntyre, who had been reported missing, was being treated in hospital for serious injuries, family friend and SNP candidate Angus MacNeil said.

Theresa May, who visited Manchester yesterday, described the attack as “appalling, sickening”. She said: “We struggle to understand the warped and twisted mind that sees a room of young people as an opportunity for carnage.”

Heavily armed police raided Abedi’s home in Elsmore Road, Fallowfield, and used explosives to get inside before forensics officers descended. They carried out a separate raid in Whalley Range.

A 23-year-old man from Manchester has been arrested in connection with the bombing, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, of Greater Manchester Police, said. Mr Hopkins said his priority was now to establish whether Abedi “was acting alone or as part of a network”.

Thousands of people gathered in central Manchester’s Albert Square in a show of defiance against his actions. Poet Tony Walsh read from his 2013 poem, This Is The Place, saying: “There's hard times again in these streets of our city, but we won't take defeat and we don't want your pity, because this is the place where we stand strong together with a smile on our face, Mancunians forever.”

The Right Rev Dr David Walker, the Bishop of Manchester, said the attacker represented “the very few, but we are the many. We are Manchester”. He spoke of “a unity that has been strengthened by our diversity” and said people who had come to the city from abroad “have become Manchester”.

The vigil was not Monday’s only act of togetherness. The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital tweeted pictures of piles of donated food and other items, one café offered free hot meals to emergency workers, and the Manchester Evening News’ fundraising appeal gained more than £500,000 in donations.

In London, Ms May chaired two meetings of the emergency Cobra committee. She called off a planned visit to the south west of England as general election campaigning was suspended.

Condemnation of the attack came from across the world. President Donald Trump called bombers like Abedi “evil losers” and added: “I extend my deepest condolences to those so terribly injured ... And to the so many families of the victims.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking in the UK embassy in Paris, said: “The whole of Europe, free Europe, has been attacked; Europe and Britain’s young people have been struck at their heart. Above all we wanted to express these condolences, this feeling of solidarity and this full support this afternoon. We’re also determined to strengthen European cooperation in the fight against terrorism.”

In a rare public statement, MI5 chief Andrew Parker said: “Everyone at MI5 is revolted by the disgusting terrorist attack in Manchester. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims, the injured and everyone affected by it.

“Our teams have been working with the police through the night to assist the investigation.

“We remain relentlessly focused, in numerous current operations, on doing all we can to combat the scourge of terrorism and keep the country safe.”

Most of the recent attempts to carry out attacks with explosives in the UK have failed, either because the plots have been infiltrated at an early stage by MI5 or the bombs have malfunctioned, on a few occasions injuring those trying to make them.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not that easy to get the right ingredients and equipment and manufacture a viable device from the Internet, and then maintain secrecy while planning and executing plots.

A direct result of this has been the use of other weapons. Firearms are much more difficult to obtain in the UK than the Continent and thus there has been a rise in attacks involving knives and vehicles.

Isis has, meantime, repeatedly exhorted its followers to use items readily available every day as weapons.

One of the most horrific and high-profile use of knives by Islamist terrorists was the public killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013. Since then plots have been uncovered using knives and cars, with the use of both by Khalid Masood in Westminster two months ago.

Monday night’s attack in Manchester will prompt fear that attackers in the UK now have at least limited access to more high-tech weaponry.

As investigators look into the background of Abedi, they will examine whether support has been provided from terrorists based in Libya.

There are long-standing links between Manchester and the north African country, with members of Manchester’s Libyan community having taken part in the uprising against Col Gaddafi.

Members of Manchester’s Libyan community are believed to have taken part in the uprising against Col Gaddafi in 2011.

Some were, and may continue to be, members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UN for its affiliation with al-Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks in New York.

Isis, expanding its "caliphate" from Syria, had moved to Benghazi in eastern Libya, and Col Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte in the west.

The jihadists had carried out a number of attacks abroad from there, including the massacre at Sousse in June 2015 in which 38 people, 30 of them British, were killed. Since then Isis had been driven out of their strongholds by Libyan militias aided by Western special forces, with Sirte falling in December last year. However it retains a presence in the country.

Robert Emerson, a security analyst, said: “We know from past experience that it is very difficult to work out whether an attack was carried out solely by an individual.

A number of supposed ‘lone wolf’ attacks in Europe, we now know, were guided by Daesh (Isis) handlers. This is obviously a very early stage of the investigation, but it would be surprising if this guy [Abedi] did this just by himself.”