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3Novices:Details emerge aboout Manchester bomber's Libya connections

British police have arrested four people in connection with the Manchester Arena attack, widening the dragnet into possible accomplices to suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

Greater Manchester police say one of the arrested men is Salman's brother, 23-year-old Ismail, who was taken into custody outside a supermarket in the city on Tuesday.

The other three arrests were made on Wednesday but no further details were given in an unusually tight-lipped announcement by Greater Manchester police.

Detectives are investigating whether Abedi had accomplices in the suicide attack on the arena on Monday night which killed 22 and wounded 59. Investigators are also examining reports that Abedi recently returned from a three-week trip to Libya, taking the train from London to Manchester on the day of the attack.

Born in Manchester in 1994, Abedi was the third of four children to his parents, Ramadan and Samia Abedi, who fled Libya's late dictator Muammar Qaddafi to settle in Britain in 1992.

Libyan sources say the name Abedi is a variation of Obeidi - the name of one of the country's largest tribes, located mostly in the east of the country.

Residents in Manchester say his parents are now in Libya, together with his younger brother, Hisham, 20, and sister, Jomana, 18, whose social media account gave her location as Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

France's interior minister, Gerard Collomb, said on Wednesday that Salman Abedi is believed to have recently travelled to Syria from Libya and had "proven" links with ISIL.

Police are also investigating whether ISIL recruiters are operating in Manchester.

Twin sisters Zahra and Salma Halane, who left to join ISIL in Syria in 2015, attended the city's Whalley Range school, which Abedi's sister Jomana also attended.

Last year, former British foreign secretary Philip Hammond said more than 1,500 Britons had tried to get to Syria and Iraq to join ISIL. He said 800 of them succeeded but that Britain stopped another 600 would-be recruits from reaching their destinations. Some of the 800 have returned to the UK, disenchanted with life under ISIL control.

The number of ISIL recruits and potential recruits, many lured by campaigns on social media, has created a headache for British security forces trying to keep track of possible terror suspects.

Reports say Abedi was known to authorities, but considered a peripheral figure.

His Libyan ancestry has focused attention on the continuing presence of ISIL in the North African country.

Libya is ISIL's main base in North Africa, with units originally moving from its forces in Syria and Iraq. The group has lost ground in recent months having failed to gain mass support in Libya's tribal-based society, but has attracted several thousand foreign fighters.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae



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