Jihadi family: Manchester suicide bomber’s relatives linked to terror

SALMAN Abedi “loved partying” but is said to have changed after growing up with a jihadi-linked father and a brother allegedly plotting his own terror attack.

A DISTURBING picture is emerging of Manchester bomber Salman Abedi and his jihadist family, as his father and two brothers are arrested.

The 22-year-old, whose suicide attack on an Ariana Grande concert killed at least 22 people and injured 59, was born in the UK to parents who fled Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Libya after they were accused of assisting Islamists.

The family has close links to al-Qaeda, and the mass murderer’s sister Jomana, 18, told the Wall Street Journal she believed her brother wanted “revenge” for US bombings on children in the Middle East.

Friends said Salman loved partying, taking drugs and boozing, with one telling The Sun the Manchester United fan was “very jolly”. But over the past two years he had apparently changed completely, after several trips to Libya to see his family.

Salman, 22, was responsible for the explosion that killed at least 22 and injured 59 at the end of an Ariana Grande concert. Picture: The Sun

Two of his friends from college had even separately called an anti-terror hotline after he told them “being a suicide bomber was OK”, a community worker told the BBC.

His brother Hashim, 18, and father Ramadan have now been arrested in the North African country, where anti-terror forces say Hashim was planning another attack.

Hashim told investigators after his arrest that both he and Salman were members of Islamic State, Libyan counter-terrorism officials said in an official statement.

Their older brother Ismail, 23, was arrested in the UK on Tuesday.

Abedi reportedly called his family in Tripoli 15 ­minutes before the attack.

Here’s what we know about this family of terror.

THE PARENTS

Ramadan Abedi, 51, was detained for questioning in Tripoli on Wednesday shortly after telling the Associated Press his son Salman was innocent and had been planning a religious pilgrimage to Mecca.

Ramadan and wife Samia Tabbal, 50, fled Libya in 1993 after he was accused of helping Islamists by tipping them off before police raids.

Ramadan Abedi, father of Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman.

He has denied having ties to any militant groups, including al-Qaeda-linked Libya Islamic Fighting Group. “This is nonsense,” he said, adding that under dictator Gaddafi, “anyone who went to a mosque raised question marks.”

After less than a year in Saudi Arabia, Ramadan headed to the UK, where he sought political asylum and lived for 25 years, bringing up his children there.

In 2011, he returned to Libya during the mass uprising that descended into a civil war and ended with Gaddafi’s death.

He was working as administrative manager of the Central Security Force in Tripoli when three armed vehicles arrived to take him away,

The Abedis are close to the family of al-Qaeda veteran Abu Anas al-Libi, who was snatched by US special forces off a Tripoli street in 2013 and died in US custody in 2015.

Al-Libi was on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list and was accused of having links to the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.

THE SISTER

Jomana Abedi sparked outrage after she told the Wall Street Journal she believed her older brother wanted revenge.

She told the newspaper Salman was “kind” and “loving”, but added: “I think he saw children — Muslim children — dying everywhere, and wanted revenge.

“He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge.

“Whether he got that is between him and God.”

Younger brother Hashim is suspected of planning another attack in Libya.

The 18-year-old at the Tripoli-based Special Deterrent anti-terrorism force unit after his arrest on Tuesday. Picture: Ahmed Bin Salman, Special Deterrent Force via AP

THE YOUNGER BROTHER

Hashim was arrested by counter-terrorism forces in the Libyan capital of Tripoli on Tuesday night as he was receiving cash transferred from his brother Salman.

Officials said the teenager had confessed that both he and his brother were IS members.

Hashim left Britain for Libya in April, said anti-terror officials. He was allegedly planning to carry out a separate terrorist attack there.

“We have been following him for more than one month-and-a-half,” said Special Deterrent Force spokesman Ahmed Bin Salem. “He was in contact with his brother and he knew about the attack.”

THE OLDER BROTHER

Ismail Abedi, born in Westminster, was arrested in the UK on Tuesday in connection with the concert attack investigation. Confirming his older son’s arrest, father Ramadan said: “We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us. We aren’t the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Quran, but not that.”

The wife of al-Qaeda veteran Abu Anas told AP she went to college with Ismail’s wife, who was studying nuclear engineering and the two women lived together in the UK for years before they returned to Libya.

Salman was killed when he detonated an improvised explosive device in the foyer of Manchester Arena at the end of an Ariana Grande concert. Picture: AP

The bomber lived in trendy Manchester suburb Fallowfield. Picture: Oli Scarff/AFP

THE SUICIDE BOMBER

Salman was killed when he detonated an improvised explosive device in the foyer of Manchester Arena at the end of an Ariana Grande concert.

The 22-year-old, who was living in Manchester’s popular Fallowfield and in his second year of studying economics, had visited Libya just a month-and-a-half ago.

His father said he was planning to return to Libya to spend the holy month of Ramadan with the family.

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

But Ramadan denied his son had ever been to Syria and said Salman had “sounded normal” when they spoke three days before Tuesday’s attack.

The terrorist is pictured on the beach as a teen in Libya.

Six men and one woman have been arrested and were being held in custody, with the probe widening beyond Manchester to Nuneaton in central England.

Salman is believed to have been a “mule” used to carry out the attack, and the person who built the nail bomb is still at large, a police source told the Manchester Evening News.

“They don’t waste bombmakers,” he said. “The reason we have gone to critical is because he is still out there and the fear is that he will strike again before they get caught.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May has raised the country’s terror threat level from “severe” to “critical”, meaning authorities expect another attack is imminent.

— With wires

Originally published as Jihadi family: Manchester suicide bomber’s relatives linked to terror