Manchester Arena bomber, Salman Abedi and his family were part of militias benefitting from British covert military support in Libya, six years before he murdered 22 people at the Manchester Arena in 2017, the Declassified UK website reported on Monday.
One of Salman Abedi’s close friends, Abdalraouf Abdallah had fought in the 2011 Libyan civil war for the main militia the UK helped to take over the Libyan capital. He was later convicted in the UK for terrorism offences related to Syria.
Abdallah told the Manchester Arena inquiry he was trained by NATO at the time – a claim NATO denies.
‘Declassified UK’ suggested that Salman and his brothers Ismail and Hashem may have received training from militant groups that British Special Forces were working with to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
The inquiry, which finished hearing testimonies in March and will report later this year, also heard evidence from the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) that Salman either fought with Libya’s Martyrs Brigade during the 2011 war, attended a training camp, or both.
Irrespective of their ideologies, Libyan militia forces were backed by Nato, which launched thousands of air strikes beginning in March 2011 against Gaddafi’s forces. The military intervention, was led by the UK, France, and the US. It was backed by the British media and Parliament.
Hashem was convicted in 2020 of helping his brother plan the bombing and sentenced to 55 years in jail. The Facebook account of Salman’s older brother Ismail also contained an image of him holding a rifle with the Martyrs Brigade flags behind him, and other images with him in camouflage clothing holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a machine gun.
The inquiry was also told that Salman’s father Ramadan Abedi, who had a long history of opposition to the Gaddafi regime and of association with Islamist extremists in the UK, was part of the Libya Martyrs and the Tripoli Brigade.
UK military forces on the ground, working with NATO, covertly supported the Libyan militias and directly aided the Tripoli Brigade’s takeover of Tripoli, the website claimed.
In answer to a Parliamentary question, the UK government said in March 2018 that it “likely” had contacts with the Martyrs Brigade in the 2011 war.
Britain had dozens of Special Forces in Libya calling in air strikes and helping rebel units assault cities still in the hands of pro-Gaddafi forces. It secretly trained rebel groups in advance of the attack on Tripoli.