The man suspected of carrying out the deadliest terror attack to hit the UK in 12 years was already known to authorities, UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Wednesday.
22-year-old Salman Abedi was named by police Tuesday as the man suspected of carrying out the attack at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
Rudd said authorities were aware of him, to a point. “The intelligence services know a lot of people, and I’m sure we will find out more what level they knew about him in due course,” she told the BBC.
“But at the moment all they have confirmed is that they did know about him, and as I say we will find out more when the operation is complete.”
At least 22 people were killed and 59 injured after a bomb exploded outside the Manchester Arena on Monday night, as concertgoers — many of them children and young people — were leaving an Ariana Grande show.
Abedi is believed to have died in the powerful blast, though he has not yet been formally identified by the coroner, Manchester police said.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said that the force was working to determine whether others were also involved in the attack.
“The priority remains to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network,” Hopkins said.
A 23-year-old man was arrested Tuesday in connection to the attack, according to Hopkins, and two search warrants were carried out as part of investigations by police.
“One (was) in Whalley Range and one in Fallowfield, that included a controlled explosion to enable safe entry,” the chief constable told reporters.
Social media footage obtained by ITV News showed heavily armed police blowing the door off a red brick building in the Fallowfield area of south Manchester, Tuesday, as part of the raids.
Images shared by residents on social media show a massive police operation, involving around 20 heavily-armed officers, as well as numerous regular uniformed officers.
Abedi’s motives for carrying out the attack remained unknown on Wednesday morning, local time. ISIS claimed responsibility, saying Abedi was a “soldier of the caliphate,” but offered no evidence.
Suspected bomber was born in the UK
Salman Abedi was born and raised in the United Kingdom, according to Prime Minister Theresa May, but was of Libyan descent.
Abedi had seemed like a lonely child, who kept himself to himself, according to long-time family friend Akram Ben Ramadan, a British Libyan who had known Abedi and his brother, Ismael, since the Abedis were children.
Ramadan, who had not seen Abedi much in recent years, had noticed that Abedi had begun to dress “Islamically,” in a long robe, and was growing a beard.
Members of Manchester’s Libyan community told CNN Abedi’s father returned to Libya at the time of the revolution in 2011, while his mother stayed in England to care for the children.
She went back to Libya in the past few months, said Ramadan. There were four children in the family, including Abedi — three boys and one girl.
One of Abedi’s brothers also had his home searched Tuesday, although there was no information on whether anything was found.
Abedi was a student at the University of Salford — Manchester’s third largest university — where he studied business and management in the 2015-2016 academic year. He was enrolled for a second year, but hadn’t been attending classes, nor had he been active in school life, according to those who knew him.
Abedi, did not live on campus in Salford, and instead resided in South Manchester.
