Britain’s MI5 intelligence service yesterday launched an internal inquiry into whether vital clues were missed in the run-up to the Manchester suicide bombing, as police arrested another man in connection with the attack.
The developments came one week after 22-year-old Salman Abedi, a British-born university dropout of Libyan origin, detonated his device outside a pop concert by teen idol Ariana Grande, killing 22 people, including six children under the age of 18.
A 23-year-old man was arrested in the southern coastal town of Shoreham-by-Sea, more than 400km from Manchester, over the attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
That brings the total number of people now detained on UK soil to 14, all of them men, while Abedi’s father and brother have been held in Libya where officials said the two brothers were Islamic State (IS) extremists.
MI5 are looking at decisions taken in the case of Abedi, who used to be on a terror watch list, but was no longer on it at the time of the attack, and whether warnings about his behavior were ignored amid mounting criticism of the security services.
“There is a lot of information coming out at the moment about what happened, how this occurred, what people might or might not have known,” British Home Secretary Amber Rudd told Sky News.
“It is right that MI5 take a look to find out what the facts are,” she said. “We shouldn’t rush to make any conclusions at this stage.”
Two people who knew Abedi made separate calls to an anti-terrorism hotline to warn the police about his extremist views, British media outlets have reported.
The BBC also said that Abedi had taken part in an armed uprising against then-Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s regime as a teenager during school holidays.
British investigators have released pictures of Abedi taken from closed-circuit TV shortly before the attack, which also injured more than 100 people, appealing to the public for help in tracing his movements.
Abedi could be seen on the night of the massacre, wearing jeans and trainers, a black bodywarmer and a baseball cap, with the straps of the backpack believed to contain the bomb visible on his shoulders.
The police statement said one of the last places he went to before the attack at the Manchester Arena venue was a city center apartment, where officers believe he might have finished assembling the device.
None of the men arrested have been charged with a crime yet and police have up to 14 days in which to do so under special anti-terrorism laws.
Investigators said they have a 1,000-member team working on the probe and have significant details on Abedi’s associates and movements, his finances, and how the explosive was built.
Operation Temperer, which involved the deployment of armed troops, was to be wound down yesterday night.
British authorities are handling 500 terror-related investigations into 3,000 individuals, with another 20,000 people on the radar posing a “residual risk.”
The family of Georgina Bethany Callander, an 18-year-old killed in the bombing, on Saturday released a tribute in which they called on the government to “open its eyes” to prevent further tragedy.
“I wish I could say that Georgina is one of the last to die in this way, but unless our government opens its eyes we know we are only another in a long line of parents on a list that continues to grow,” the family said in a statement.
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
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