(Sky News) The Manchester Arena bomber had a number of strong radicalising influences, including his father, and older brother. He also took extended leave from school to join the conflict in Libya, an academic expert noted.
According to Matthew Wilkinson, a Muslim convert and academic expert on extremism, Salman Abedi had “what you would call the sort of royal flush” of radicalising influences.
“They’re all there ready to go, and the catalysts were very virulent and aggressive, so the whole package was there,” he told the bombing inquiry.
Abedi’s journey began in 2013, four years before the attack, but Wilkinson believes there were “moments of opportunity” when it could have been disrupted.
“If several of those characteristics are lacking, it’s possible that someone wasn’t nudged into that world view in the first place, and that a good catalyst may lead to a completely other world view and outcome.”
He attributed the radicalization to a “long period of alienation with conventional English instruction.”
Wilkinson stated that education is “one of the major mechanisms” through which children of migrants, as well as migrants themselves, integrate into society, enhance their career possibilities, and get to know people.
Abedi, on the other hand, had “extremely low attendance rates.” He was sent to Burnage Media Arts College’s ‘inclusion’ section for damaging school property, before being permanently expelled.
In 2009, his parents took Salman and Hashem out of school on unofficial leave to travel to Libya for the summer, “so their engagement with mainstream schooling, and then further managed action did not materialise.”
Teachers told the investigation that Salman and his younger brother Hashem, who helped create the bomb, couldn’t focus in class and were easily distracted.
Wilkinson said Abedi had a “repeated pattern” of beginning to engage in formal schooling and then “dropping away, disengaging, and slipping into delinquency and even violence very fast.”