Salman Abedi, 22, has been named as the Manchester Arena bomber. Photo / AP
Salman Abedi, 22, has been named as the Manchester Arena bomber. Photo / AP
The Manchester suicide bomber was repeatedly flagged to the authorities over his extremist views, but was not stopped by officers, it emerged last night.
Counter-terrorism agencies were facing questions after it emerged Salman Abedi told friends that "being a suicide bomber was okay", prompting them to call the Government's anti-terrorism hotline.
Sources suggest that authorities were warned of the danger Abedi posed at least five times in the five years before Monday night's attack.
The authorities were also aware that Abedi's father Ramadan was linked to a well-known militant Islamist group in Libya, which is banned in Britain. The younger Abedi also had links to several British-based jihadis with Isis connections.
Yesterday his father was detained by Libyan militia in the capital Tripoli and the suicide bomber's two brothers have separately been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences.
The apparent lapses emerged on a day of heightened police activity as the hunt for Abedi's terror cell intensified, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Officers raided the suspected "bomb factory" where it is feared he made the device before the attack.
Last night the Home Secretary Amber Rudd conceded that Abedi was known to intelligence services, and counter-terrorism officials were braced for criticism over the apparent failures.
• It emerged security services are examining links between Abedi and an expert bomb-maker who had lived in the same street in Manchester.
• Leaked pictures last night emerged in the US of fragments of the bomb, prompting a diplomatic row between the Downing St and the US security services.
• Britain was placed on security lockdown with soldiers on the streets and several high-profile events cancelled.
• The general election will resume with Ukip's general election manifesto launch today.
• A minute's silence will be held on Thursday at 11am (local time) in memory of the victims.
• A police officer was revealed as one of the bomb victims, as further identities emerged.
Salman Abedi, right, the Manchester bomber, is pictured on the beach as a teen in Libya. Photo / Facebook
The missed opportunities to catch Abedi were beginning to mount up last night. The Telegraph has spoken to a community leader who said that Abedi was reported two years ago "because he thought he was involved in extremism and terrorism".
Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said: "People in the community expressed concerns about the way this man was behaving and reported it in the right way using the right channels.
Two friends of Abedi also became so worried they separately telephoned the police counter-terrorism hotline five years ago and again last year.
"They had been worried that 'he was supporting terrorism' and had expressed the view that 'being a suicide bomber was okay'," a source told the BBC.
Akram Ramadan, 49, part of the close-knit Libyan community in south Manchester, said Abedi had been banned from Didsbury Mosque after he confronted the imam who was delivering an anti-extremist sermon.
Ramadan said he understood that Abedi had been placed on a "watch list" because the mosque reported him to the authorities for his extremist views.
A well-placed source at Didsbury Mosque confirmed it had contacted the Home Office's Prevent anti-radicalisation programme as a result.
A US official was also briefed that members of Abedi's own family had contacted British police saying that he was "dangerous", but again the information does not appear to have been acted upon.
Police forensic investigators search the property of Salman Abedi over the concert bombing. Photo / AP
Abedi's family background might also have been a red flag to authorities. His father was a member of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
Yet Abedi was able to travel frequently between the UK and Libya, where it is feared he trained in bombmaking and possibly traveled to Syria.
His youngest brother, Hisham - who is photographed on social media wielding an automatic rifle, was yesterday arrested by the Libyans who suspect him of knowing about the Manchester plot in advance and plotting his own attack in Tripoli.
US authorities said Abedi was known to them before the atrocity while France's interior minister said the 22-year-old had "proven" links with Islamic State and that both British and French intelligence services had information that the attacker had been in Syria.
Rudd disclosed that the intelligence services had been aware of Abedi, who had only in the past few weeks returned to the UK after visiting Libya.
Rudd told Sky News: "We do know that he was known up to a point to the intelligence services."
Ramadan Abedi earlier denied his son was to blame.
Police forensic investigators search the property of Salmon Abedi today. Photo / AP
He told Bloomberg: "I was really shocked when I saw the news, I still don't believe it.
"He was always against those attacks, saying there's no religious justification for them. I don't understand how he'd have become involved in an attack that led to the killing of children."
But a friend of the family said Abedi's parents had become so concerned about his behaviour they had ordered him to leave the UK and live with them in Libya.
Adel Elghrani said: "The father was so concerned he confiscated his passport. But then Salman went to his mother and said he wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and she gave him his passport back and he came to England instead."
Abedi then flew back to Britain, carrying out his deadly attack a few weeks later.
Counter-terrorism officers now believe that Abedi rented a flat through Airb'n'b in the days before the attack and stayed there until around 7pm on the night of the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena.
He carried the bomb in a rucksack and detonated it at just after 10.30pm as the US pop star was completing her last song.
Sources last night told the Daily Telegraph that there were two bomb factories, with the chemicals mixed in the rented Airb'n'b flat in Granby Row before the bomb was assembled elsewhere.
It was not clear if the second flat had been discovered.
The photographs of the bomb fragments were leaked to the New York Times hours after Rudd had said leaks of intelligence shared with the US authorities had to stop.
It prompted fury in Whitehall, and Rudd and Attorney-General Jeremy Wright are understood to be among officials who phoned their counterparts in the US to demand answers.
The Daily Telegraph understands that there is such serious concern about the leak that Theresa May will raise it with President Donald Trump when she sees him at a Nato meeting in Brussels today.
A senior Whitehall source described the leak as "unacceptable" and said the US authorities had been left "in no doubt about our huge strength of feeling on this issue".
Government sources accused the US of risking "compromising" the investigation by repeated leaks.
