Home Secretary says she doesn't know how many Brits have returned to UK after fighting with ISIS!

 Manchester Bomber - Salman Abedi

IT seems quite extraordinary that when the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, was recently questioned about the Manchester suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, she admitted that the authorities didn’t know how many Britons had returned from fighting with ‘Islamic State’ or other extremist groups, and declined to say, how many times ‘exclusion orders’ had been used; “We have started to use them”, she said. Such an admission, is astonishing, from a government that claims that Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is ‘soft on terrorism’.

What many British people will find bewildering, is how a 22-year-old Manchester man of Libyan origin, who grew up in the Whalley Range area, could have carried out such a cowardly attack. After fleeing Libya, Abadi’s family, had been given political asylum in the UK. They were given housing, state benefits and their children were educated. Salman Abedi, had been a former student of Salford University.

Described as the “worse terror attack to hit northern England”, many of his victims who were injured in the bombing, were innocent young girls who had gone to the M.E.N. arena in Manchester to watch the American pop idol, Ariana Grande. Of the 22 people killed, his youngest victim, Saffie Roussos, was only eight-years-old. Another 120 people were injured, some, suffering serious life-threatening injuries.

Friends have described Salman Abedi, as:

“A young man quick to anger, who was involved in drink and drugs and supported Manchester United. A young man who found it difficult to fit in and cut a contradictory figure, who reacted violently to western sexual norms – once punching a woman for wearing a short skirt – and got into random fights.”

Investigators believe that Abedi, may have had help in making the explosive device, storing the materials, and buying the chemicals. People who knew Abedi, have claimed that they do not believe that he had the ‘acumen’ to “formulate the terrible plan he enacted on Monday,” (22^nd May 2017).

Yet, it is known, that teachers and religious figures in Manchester, who knew Salman Abedi, had raised concerns about his extremist views with the authorities on multiple occasions over several years using the ‘Terror Hotline’ and the ‘PREVENT’ strategy, introduced by the government. US intelligence sources also told NBC News, “that some members of his family had alerted officials and told them he was ‘dangerous’. It is also known that five years ago, students at Salford University, had called the terrorism hotline after claiming that Abedi had allegedly said “being a suicide bomber was OK’.

Before his arrest, Ramadan Abedi (a.k.a. Abu Ismail), the father of Abedi, who has been in Libya since 2011, protested his son’s innocence. He told the press: “We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us.” However, another son, Hashem Abadi, who was arrested in Tripoli while waiting to receive a transfer of cash from is brother Salman, is reported to have told Libyan anti-terror forces that he “Was aware of all the details of the terrorist attack,” and that he and Salman, were members of ‘Daesh’ (ISIS). Following the attack, ISIS claimed responsibility for the Manchester bombing.

Ramadan Abedi, fought with the ‘Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’ (LIFG) in Libya. The group was opposed to Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and sought to replace him with an Islamic state. It also proclaimed allegiance to Osama bin Laden. In 2004, LIFG, was classified as a terrorist organisation, when the U.S. sought to break-up ‘al-Qa'ida's’ network of sympathisers. On 28 May 2017, it was reported in the ‘Guardian’ newspaper, that “Abedi senior’s Facebook page shows that he supported the ‘Shura’ Council, a bitter enemy of ISIS in Libya’. The same article also claimed that earlier this year, Ramadan Abedi, had summoned Salman Abedi to Libya, because of concern about his son’s “erratic behaviour” and had confiscated his passport.

Given the reports about Abedi, and the ease with which, he shuttled back and forth between Manchester and Tripoli over many years, it is extremely surprising that the security services didn’t have him under closer scrutiny. He was known to the security services, but was “not one of the 3,000 people under active investigation’. Some reports have suggested that he was in Libya for the uprising in 2011 and “was injured in Ajdabiya in eastern Libya while fighting for an Islamic faction.” French intelligence sources have also claimed that Salman Abedi, was one of 3,500 Libyans who went to Syria to fight, an allegation that “has been played down by British intelligence.” Moreover, Abedi, had travelled back to England from Libya via Turkey and Düsseldorf, just four days before the attack.

In spite of his background, Ian Hopkins, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP), told BBC Radio Manchester that the local authorities had been unaware Abedi’s ‘radicalisation’ and he was not known to the PREVENT anti-radicalisation programme. He was only known to GMP because of a conviction for theft, receiving stolen goods and minor assault in 2012.

Since the bombing in Manchester, people have rightly sought explanations for why Salman Abedi, carried out the attack at the M.E.N. Arena. His sister, Jomana, told the ‘Wall Street Journal’ that her brother had been angered by what was happening in Syria:

“I think he saw children – Muslim children – dying everywhere, and wanted revenge. He saw explosives America drops on children in Syria and he wanted revenge. Whether he got that is between him and God.”

If this was the motive that drove Salman Abedi to carry out his cowardly attack, then it seems to have been driven by a most twisted and perverted kind of ‘Jihadi’ logic. Few of us, cannot help but feel appalled at the suffering we have seen meted out to innocent children and Syrian civilians, by various factions fighting in the Syrian conflict. But it isn’t just American and English bombs that kill Muslim children! Russian bombs and the barrel bombs of the Syrian ‘Shia’ Muslim leader, Bashar al-Assad, also kill Muslim children. And how many of us, would feel, that the way to avenge the deaths of Muslim children, is by murdering other people’s children in the west?

‘Jihad's’, like Abedi, may well feel outrage at western intervention in Muslim countries, but turn a convenient blind eye, when ISIS bomb schools, mosques and markets in those very same countries. This week, an Islamic State car bomb targeted families eating ice cream, after breaking their Ramadan fast, in the Karrada district of Baghdad, killing 17 people and wounding 32 more. This month, a bus carrying Egyptian ‘Coptic Christians’ was attacked leaving 29 dead and 20 more injured. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, declaring Christians in Egypt, “Our first target and favourite prey.” It is a fact, that ISIS regularly target civilians, including children, Shia shrines and Christian churches.

Many on the British left, are loathe to condemn the atrocities carried out by ISIS and their adherents, and to do so, runs the risk of one being accused of ‘Islamophobia’. Like the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the journalist John Pilger, they feel that it’s all the fault of western foreign policy and that if we didn’t involve ourselves in foreign wars, these things would be less likely to happen. No doubt, groups like ISIS have benefited from the campaigns waged by western governments to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and have taken advantage, of the chaos, brought about by the collapse of the State of Iraq. But this, ‘it’s all the fault of the west’ attitude, has seen some on the left, defending radical Islamist movements like ISIS, who decapitate apostates and unbelievers, enslave women, murder homosexuals and Jews, and are prepared to wipe out whole communities that will not submit to their ultra-fundamentalist and twisted interpretation of Islam. Notwithstanding, western foreign policy, it should be clear to most people who are not deluded, that groups like ISIS are ‘anti-western, anti-democratic, and anti-human rights’.

Professor Gareth Stansfield, professor of Middle East politics at Exeter University, believes that Abedi is typical of many second generation migrants drawn to Islamist groups -

“It’s the classic thing of being dispossessed, of having no roots. They see the perceived immorality of the west around them and these seeds are planted and become extremely toxic and poisonous.”

Since the bombing, thousands of people across Greater Manchester have attended vigils to remember the victims of this terror attack by the suicide bomber Salman Abedi. Far from spreading fear, hatred and division, as he intended, we have seen people of all communities and faiths in Greater Manchester coming together to show solidarity with everyone affected by the events in Manchester. A ‘JustGiving’ page set up to support the victims and their families, has so far surpassed £1.5 million. The “We Love Manchester Emergency Fund” has raised £6 million for people who have been injured or bereaved following the bombing. And this Sunday, Ariana Grande, is to perform a benefit concert for victims of the bombing at ‘Old Trafford cricket ground’. The ‘One Love Manchester’ concert includes Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Katey Perry and Miley Cyrus.