Britain says some of Manchester bomber's network potentially still at large

[webfact]

Britain says some of Manchester bomber's network potentially still at large

By Phil Noble

REUTERS

 

People look at floral tributes for the victims of the Manchester Arena attack, in St Ann's Square, in central Manchester, Britain May 27, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

 

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Members of Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi's network are still potentially at large, British interior minister Amber Rudd said on Sunday, after the terrorism threat level was lowered because of significant progress in the investigation.

 

Police said they have arrested a large part of the network behind the bombing, which killed 22 people at a concert hall, and three more men were arrested over the weekend as police continued to close in on the group.

 

Asked during an interview on BBC television whether some of the group were still at large, Rudd said: "Potentially. It is an ongoing operation. There are 11 people in custody, the operation is still really at full tilt in a way."

 

Greater Manchester Police said on Sunday that they had arrested a 14th person in connection with the attack. The 25-year-old man was detained in the southwest of the city on suspicion of terrorism offences. Police were also searching another address in the south of Manchester.

 

Prime Minister Theresa May said developments in the investigation into the bombing meant that intelligence experts had decided to lower the threat level from its highest rating "critical", meaning an attack could be imminent, to "severe".

 

Police have issued a photograph of Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton born to Libyan parents, taken on Monday night before he blew himself up and said they believed he had assembled his bomb in an apartment in the city centre.

 

British officials have confirmed he had recently returned from Libya and the officers said that police needed information about his movements since his return to Britain on May 18.

 

Abedi was known to British security services before the bombing, the government has said, but Rudd declined to comment on exactly what had been known about him.

 

Media have reported that people who knew Abedi had raised concerns about him and his views as long ago as five years before he carried about Monday's attack.

 

"The intelligence services are still collecting information about him, but I wouldn't rush to conclusions, as you seem to be, that they have somehow missed something," Rudd said.

 

"TOP LIST" OF MILITANTS

 

When asked how many potential militants the government was worried about, Rudd said the security services were looking at 500 different potential plots, involving 3,000 people as a "top list", with a further 20,000 beneath that.

 

"That is all different layers, different tiers. It might be just a question mark about one of them or something serious with that top list," she said.

 

The government has previously complained that technology companies are not doing enough to tackle the use of their networks both to promote extremist ideology and for communication between militant suspects via encrypted messages.

 

Rudd said Britain was making good progress with internet companies on this but that more could be done. Technology companies such as WhatsApp say they cannot break end-to-end encryption.

 

"I believe we can get them to be more successful in working with us to find a way of getting some of that information," she said.

 

"The area that I am most concerned about is the internet companies who are continuing to publish the hate publications, the hate material that is contributing to radicalising people in this country."

 

Security minister Ben Wallace also told the BBC that the government was looking at a range of options to put more pressure on internet companies to take down extremist material and change their algorithims to stop such posts from linking to similar material elsewhere online.

 

(Writing by Kylie MacLellan in London; Editing by Alison Williams, Stephen Powell and David Goodman)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-29

[chrisinth]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

"TOP LIST" OF MILITANTS

 

When asked how many potential militants the government was worried about, Rudd said the security services were looking at 500 different potential plots, involving 3,000 people as a "top list", with a further 20,000 beneath that.

 

"That is all different layers, different tiers. It might be just a question mark about one of them or something serious with that top list," she said.

It just shows what a difficult task this has become. Not just for what has happened, but preventative actions for more potential attacks. Obviously the database is only made up of 'known' suspects.

 

14 arrests on suspicion already, of which most (if not all) will be dismissed. And on that point, although manpower intensive, perhaps it is a bit too soon to relax the threat level until valid evidence has been attained, unless it already has and is being withheld (as it should be) from the masses until the security services are sure of their facts.

[scotchonrocks]

I'm hearing the opposite to what is being suggested in the media regarding the post-event hate crimes: the police are apparently heavily tied up guarding mosques and there have been a number of attacks on them and also ordinary Muslims on the streets. 

[funandsuninbangkok]

2 hours ago, chrisinth said:

It just shows what a difficult task this has become. Not just for what has happened, but preventative actions for more potential attacks. Obviously the database is only made up of 'known' suspects.

 

14 arrests on suspicion already, of which most (if not all) will be dismissed. And on that point, although manpower intensive, perhaps it is a bit too soon to relax the threat level until valid evidence has been attained, unless it already has and is being withheld (as it should be) from the masses until the security services are sure of their facts.

I very much like the British and the U.K. Unfortunately they have been deceived by the multicultural rabble. All cultures are not the same.

 

Islam - no renaissance, no enlightenment, no industrial revolution. No experience fighting and defeating Nazism. 

 

They are in the Dark Ages and are now your neighbors. Foolish

Edited May 29, 2017 by funandsuninbangkok

[petermik]

We have let them in and paid them handsomely over the years,the "do gooders" both public and political have taken over the asylum....glad I,m out.

As many thought at the time Enoch was right

[daveAustin]

Police have issued a photograph of Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton

He was NOT a Briton.

[Ramen087]

If not a Briton, what???

[Lokie]

Born in UK of Libyan extraction (basically took all the benefits offered to him and his family and repays UK's generosity and human kindness like this) No he is not a Briton although there is lots of other things one could call him...

[Basil B]

10 hours ago, webfact said:

Police have issued a photograph of Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton born to Libyan parents, taken on Monday night before he blew himself up and said they believed he had assembled his bomb in an apartment in the city centre.

My question is according to reports of him making his own explosive which probably consisted of diesel and fertiliser...

 

Would that have been very smelly, how did he get into a crowd of people and no one suspect? and he must have experimented and tested the explosive so how did he do it with out raising suspicion?

 

[Kevbo]

On 5/29/2017 at 10:03 AM, Ramen087 said:

If not a Briton, what???

British passport holder