MANCHESTER, England — Britain ordered soldiers to key sites on Wednesday and raised the terror alert to maximum after the Manchester concert suicide bombing by a local man of Libyan origin who may have been radicalized in Syria.
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Armed police stand near the Manchester Arena in Manchester, Britain, on Wednesday. — Reuters[/caption]
Security services believe the suspected bomber, Salman Abedi, was likely to have had help from others in staging the massacre that killed 22 people including one girl aged just eight.
Interior Minister Amber Rudd said the 22-year-old had been on the radar of the intelligence community before the attack late Monday at a concert by US pop star Ariana Grande.
Investigators were trying to piece together the last movements of Abedi, a Manchester-born man of Libyan descent.
After arresting a 23-year-old man on Tuesday, police said they had arrested three more men on Wednesday in south Manchester, where Abedi lived.
Abedi was reported to be a former business student who dropped out of university.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said he had “likely” been to Syria, citing information provided by British intelligence services to their counterparts in Paris.
He told French television the suspect “grew up in Britain and then suddenly, after a trip to Libya and then likely to Syria, became radicalized and decided to carry out this attack.”
“In any case, the links with Daesh (the so-called IS) are proven,” he said, which claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday.
Police on Tuesday staged an armed raid on a Manchester address believed to be where Abedi lived, carrying out a controlled explosion to gain entry.
Rudd declined to give any further information about Abedi but told BBC radio: “It was more sophisticated than some of the attacks we’ve seen before, and it seems likely — possible — that he wasn’t doing this on his own.”
The minister said she was “not surprised at all” that Islamic State jihadists had claimed the attack but said there was no information yet to confirm the extremist organization’s active direction.
Prime Minister Theresa May placed the country on its highest level of terror alert — “critical” — for the first time since June 2007, when it was sparked by an attack on Glasgow airport.
Troops will fan out at sites such as Buckingham Palace, Westminster and foreign embassies in London to free up armed police for anti-terror duties.
May said a new attack “may be imminent” and stressed that the soldiers would remain under police command.
The Changing of the Guard, a military ceremony in front of Buckingham Palace popular with tourists, was cancelled on Wednesday and the Houses of Parliament suspended all public events.
The attack was the deadliest in Britain since July 7, 2005 when four suicide bombers inspired by Al-Qaeda attacked London’s transport system during rush hour, killing 52 people. — AFP
