Terror fallout
Libyan security forces who had been monitoring group for months said he was a ‘significant player’
THE younger brother of the Manchester bomber was a member of a jihadist cell believed to have been planning an attack on the UN’s special envoy to Libya, The Sunday Telegraph understands.
The plot to target Martin Kobler, the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, during a visit to the capital Tripoli earlier this year was interrupted before it could be carried out, diplomatic sources said.
Libyan security services had been monitoring the group for months and claim they found Hashim Abedi, the 20-year-old brother of suicide bomber Salman, 22, to be a “significant player”.
They were apparently in the late stages of building an explosive device and intended to hit German national Mr Kobler’s convoy.
MI6 officers are thought to be in Tripoli in a joint investigation with the Libyan authorities into the brothers.
Hashim was arrested on Tuesday night at the family home in Tripoli over links to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and the boys’ father, Ramadan, was also taken into custody.
Rada, the Libyan Special Deterrence Force holding them, alleges Hashim admitted he was aware of all the details of the Manchester Arena attack and that the two brothers had joined Isil.
A spokesman for the Libyan authorities said: “He told us, ‘I have ideology with my brother. I know everything about my brother, what he was doing there in Manchester.’”
He added that Hashim told them that Salman had learnt how to make explosives on the internet and wanted to “seek victory for Isil”.
Hashim was said to be en route to the bank to withdraw 4,500 Libyan dinars (£450) sent by the bomber when he was arrested by the militia. It is thought he was planning his own atrocity.
Hashim was reported to have been a studious child. After finishing Burnage school in Manchester he enrolled in a one-year IT course at the Northenden campus of Manchester College from 2015-16, the same as Salman.
A fellow pupil at the college told The Telegraph that, unlike his older brother, Hashim was very clever. “He finished his course with a pass and he’s very very brainy,” said the friend, who did not wish to be named.
Asked whether he was surprised at the news, he said: “No, Hashim used to always go to his home country and show me all the pictures of him with RPGs, AK 47s, 9mms, grenades.
“After a few joints Hashim would preach to me about Isis. But Hashim wants to be a professional boxer though, so I can’t see him blowing himself up.”
The Telegraph, with the help of fact checker Henk van Ess at investigative website Bellingcat, recovered photos and posts from Hashim’s deactivated Facebook page.
He liked to call himself “Hashim Corleone Abedi” on the account. A friend of Hashim’s shared a picture in 2012 of a plane flying into New York’s twin towers, which Abedi “liked”. In re- sponse to a question of who was his “hero”, he answered Osama bin Laden.
One of his regular contacts on the account is Junade Hostey, the younger brother of Raphael, one of Britain’s most prolific recruiters for Isil who left Manchester for Syria in 2013 before he was killed in an air strike last year. Police suspect Salman was friends with Raphael and are probing possible communication between them.
The social media accounts suggest a jihadist network spanning across Manchester, Cardiff and Portsmouth.
Hashim’s father Ramadan, a security officer in Muammar Gaddafi’s government, and wife Samia, moved to the UK after fleeing Libya in the early 1990s.
Ramadan, 51, then returned to Libya in 2008 after a reconciliation deal with the Gaddafi government. He and his eldest sons fought with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group some elements of which are aligned with al-Qaeda.
The family then returned to Manchester in 2014, when the brothers enrolled in studies. Reportedly worried their sons were becoming involved in gangs, Ramadan and his wife decided to take the family back to Libya in October last year.