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,”
(22nd 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.
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