Salman Abedi was born in Britain to parents of Lybian refugees. His brother, when arrested in Tripoli, apparently confessed they belonged to the Islamic State and he had been aware of the attack for weeks. German intelligence tells us that Abedi flew from Istanbul to London via Dusseldorf. Turkey is the hub for Islamist militants. The Moss Side area in Manchester where Abedi lived, is UK’s equivalent of Moleenbeek, a radicalisation and recruitment hotspot with an undercurrent of jihadi atmosphere. Sky news reported Abedi had links with key ISIS recruiter, Raphael Hostey, who was killed by a drone in 2016. The mycelium-like network of radicalism and Islamist fundamentalism is firmly established in British soil, with cells likely in the industrial towns of the UK. In the 1950s, Pakistan’s refugees went to Luton in Bedfordshire for jobs in the brick kilns. Manchester attracted those who had experience in textile mills and Birmingham offered jobs for manual labourers; familiarity with these locations made them the desirable destination for other immigrants.
Abedi was against UK/US foreign policy, intervention/interference in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and particularly abandoning Libya to the mercy of mobs after the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. Abedi is an example of the failure of multiculturalism.
The British government, intelligence and police are furious with US officials and the media for twice leaking essential details to the press. The US has a more transparent attitude to information, while British authorities feel this is a breach of trust, undermining investigations, so they have stopped sharing intelligence with the US.
Various British government offices have been lethargic in facing up to the dichotomy of moderate Muslims and Islamist terrorism. Government must face up to the lack of genuine integration in civil society for some British born children of immigrants, who still feel they belong to the land their parents fled. There is now a call for moderate Muslims to step up and defend their faith from being hijacked by extremists. The government must step up and empower and protect the moderate Muslim community to do this. Taking a leaf from India’s book, the government must legitimise a thorough open conversation about possible reforms to Muslim personal law and education; the Mona Siddiqui review into Sharia law launched with fanfare in May 2016 seems to have been muted. The chain of accountability is clear: the public consisting of sentient beings of all faiths and race must hold the next Prime Minister accountable for an end to radicalism.
Similarly, the Northern Ireland “troubles” of the 1970s-80s had a sectarian, political and ethnic theme that affected the entire United Kingdom and all the communities within. Manchester has had this effect. Mancunians and British citizens have joined together in compassion and in rejecting the furtive forces of radical Islamism.
Meanwhile, HM Queen Elizabeth visited the injured in hospital. The General Election is no longer about Brexit. Operation Temperer monitors our streets with up to 5,000 military personnel. The threat level decided by MI5 remains critical but one small lamp of hope was the sight of an elderly Muslim man, wearing an Islamic prayer hat, arm in arm with an elderly Jewish lady, on their way to the vigil of remembrance in Manchester.