Neighbors of Manchester bomber Salman Abedi recall him as abrasive, anti-social
MANCHESTER, England — An intense confrontation years ago in the suburb where suicide bomber Salman Abedi lived took on added meaning this week for Sandra Locke.
Abedi stepped behind her daughter's car several years ago as she tried to reverse it down the narrow street that separates the terraced houses, Locke said. He refused to move and threatened her daughter with violence, she added.
"He came right up to the car window and said that he was going to do this and do that,” Locke recalled. “She was really frightened."
Abedi's family ties and travels in Libya drew severe scrutiny Wednesday as authorities continued to piece together what led the British-born man to carry out the deadliest terror attack in the United Kingdom in more than a decade.
U.S. Africa Command reported Abedi, 22, spent three weeks in Libya and returned to Manchester within days of Monday’s bombing. The purpose of the trip remains unknown.
Abedi’s father, Ramadan Abedi, and younger brother, Hashem, were taken into custody in Libya on Wednesday. Another brother, Ismail, was taken into police custody in Manchester on Tuesday.
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British authorities are investigating whether a terror network helped Abedi carry out the attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena late Monday that killed 22 people and wounded scores.
The Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for the bombing and said Abedi was one of their soldiers. But British authorities said they have yet to determine if the claim is valid and what, if any, assistance the Manchester college student received in constructing the bomb, picking his target and executing the attack.
Neighbors in the down-at-heel suburb where Abedi lived recalled him as a quiet young man who showed no obvious signs of radicalization, but found he could be abrasive at times. He had recently taken to wearing traditional Islamic dress.
"He never said hello, not so much as a good morning or how are you or anything," Locke said.
James Keary, who grew up in the south Manchester area where the Abedis lived, described him as tall and skinny, and the youngest of four children.
"He just looked like a normal lad going about his business, going to the shops, I would pass by him on the street but he never had much to say," Keary said. "He used to fly a flag with Arabic writing on hanging out of the window but there are a lot of different types of people around here so I didn't think much of it. I can't believe he did this."
The red-brick terrace house the Abedi family lived in the Whalley Range suburb of Manchester remained cordoned off by police Wednesday as the investigation continued.
"I would see him in the garden or in the car. He was pretty anti-social," said neighbor Nisa Akhtar.
Akhtar said she heard loud bangs when police raided Abedi's house earlier this week and detained his older brother, Ismail, who has not been charged.
"My first thought was, 'Oh, gosh, this is like in the movies,'" Akhtar said. "It's been difficult to explain to the children."
Mohammad Fadil, a 25-year-old Internet technology consultant of Libyan descent, said he would see Abedi around Manchester but did not know him well. "He was distant, quiet. He acted by himself and represents only himself," he said.
Fadil said he knew Abedi's older brother, Ismail, though, whom he described as "a very normal citizen of this country. He was recently married. He goes on vacations. Completely normal. What his brother did has nothing to do with him and does not reflect the Libyan community."
Fadil said he would often see Ismail at the Didsbury Mosque in Manchester, a meeting point for the city's Arab and North African Muslim population.
"If there are issues in the community, if anybody has seen anything they would have reported it," Fadil said while speaking outside the mosque, referring to concern that not enough is being done to weed out potential Islamic radicals in the United Kingdom.
As Fadil spoke, a car drove by the mosque and a man leaned out the window and shouted: "Shut it down."
"We are not terrorists. We are doctors," Fadil said.
Hamid El-Sayed, who has worked for the United Nations on curbing radicalization and now works at Manchester University, told the BBC that Abedi had a "really bad relationship" with his family.
"Eventually he was doing very bad at his university, at his education, and he didn't complete, and they tried to take him back to Libya several times," El-Sayed said. "He had difficulties adjusting to European lifestyle."
The Abedis emigrated to London from Tripoli in the 1990s after Moammar Gadhafi’s security authorities issued an arrest warrant for them. They eventually sought political asylum in Britain and settled in Manchester’s sizable Libyan community. The elder Abedis later moved back to Libya, where Ramadan Abedi, the father, is now the administrative manager of the Tripoli's Central Security force.
Ramadan Abedi told the Associated Press that his son visited Libya about a month and a half ago, and denied he was linked to militants or responsible for the attack. France’s interior minister Gerard Collomb said British investigators told French officials they suspect Abedi may have also recently traveled to Syria, France’s BFMTV and the New York Times reported.
Abedi said his son sounded “normal” when he spoke to him five days ago. He confirmed that Ismail, another son living in Manchester, was taken into police custody after the attack.
Late Wednesday, Libyan officials said counter-terrorism officials arrested the bomber's father as well as the younger brother, Hashem Abedi, the Associated Press reports. Hashem was taken into custody on suspicion of links to the Islamic State, while the father was detained to be questioned, officials said.
Abedi said Salman planned to travel to Saudi Arabia and then to Libya to spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with family.
“We don’t believe in killing innocents,” Abedi said before his arrest. “This is not us.”
Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook in Washington and Aamer Madhani in Chicago