Salman Abedi had connections to gangs and terrorists in Manchester

The Manchester Arena bomber, Salman Abedi, had close connections with criminal gangs as well as known and suspected terrorists in the city, it has emerged.

Abedi, 22, associated with a gang that has for years waged war with a rival grouping in south Manchester, the Guardian has learned after speaking to members of the local community.

He is said to have been deeply upset when one of his close friends became embroiled in an alleged gangland feud – and some friends have suggested that this trauma could have added to his sense of disillusionment and anger.

Meanwhile, details of how Abedi travelled back to the UK from Libya, where his parents live, before the bombing have been revealed. He returned via Turkey and Germany, prompting authorities there to examine his previous visits.

In an interview, Abedi’s father said he did not believe that his son could have carried out the attack and said he had told him he was going to Mecca.

While condemning the bombing, he criticised the British authorities for the way they had forced their way into his former home and suggested that security forces were unfairly targeting the Libyan community in Manchester.

In south Manchester, community leaders have become increasingly worried that young men of Libyan heritage are being drawn into gang warfare in south Manchester.

In February, the Manchester Evening News reported rising tensions between a notorious south Manchester gang and members of another gang made up largely of people of Libyan and Somali heritage.

In 2015, Ayub Mabrouk, the son of a Libyan diplomat, was jailed for hiding guns and ammunition for gangsters in Hulme, south Manchester.

One community leader, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian: “There is a growing gang culture among young Libyans. It is a huge worry in the community.”

He said that many of the Libyan gang members – like other inner-city gangsters – grew up with distant or missing fathers: “Abedi is like that. His father left for Libya when he was around 17. He’s had five years without strong paternal guidance.”

A family friend, Ahmed Boshaala, said Abedi could have been affected by the gangland trouble his friend was involved in.

Boshaala, a former chemistry professor at Salford University, said: “There were many things going on with Salman. He was being put under pressure and persuaded by someone, but then yes there was also this [incident] which could have affected him. We cannot be sure exactly what was going on with him.”

Police are also investigating Salman Abedi’s links with Raphael Hostey, who was killed in an airstrike in Mosul last April aged 24.

Hostey, from Moss Side, is believed to have sponsored hundreds of terror recruits. Earlier this year, a Guardian investigation found that 16 convicted or dead terrorists lived within 2.5 miles of each other in south Manchester. It is understood that they were part of a radical network and some prayed at the same mosque.

Hostey grew up less than a mile from Abedi’s Fallowfield home. Using the nom de guerre Abu Qaqa al-Britani, he recruited a number of young men from Moss Side, including Muslim convert and former RAF gunner Stephen Gray, Raymond Matimba and Ronald Fiddler aka Jamal al-Harith.

Gray is in jail for terrorism offences, Matimba was killed fighting in Syria and Fiddler killed himself in a suicide bombing near Mosul in February. Gray’s friend, Abdalraouf Abdallah, a British-Libyan who was left paralysed after taking part in the 2011 Libyan uprising, was convicted of trying to help Gray travel to Syria to fight alongside militants.

In the interview shortly before he was arrested in Libya, Abedi’s father, Ramadan, said a female member of his household saw an online report naming his son as the bomber.

“In the beginning, one of the girls went online and she saw the news that Salman was accused of the bombing in Manchester. I didn’t expect that to happen, ever,” he said.

“He didn’t say that he was going to to Manchester. He said that he was going to umrah (a pilgrimage to Mecca), that he got a special offer. I spoke to him about five days ago. There was nothing wrong, everything was normal, he was going to umrah.”

He expressed anger that police had broken into his former house in Elsmore Road, Fallowfield.

“The security forces raided the home and broke down the door, scaring the neighbours and they thought that the house contained explosives, even spreading a rumour that it had, but there weren’t any.”

The bomber’s father said Abedi was studying at a college of further education in south Manchester. “He didn’t have any problems and he passed his two years with high marks. Salman doesn’t belong to any organisation. There was nothing hidden because I had open discussions with him about anything he wanted to understand. The family is a bit confused because Salman doesn’t have this ideology.

“I’m sure that Salman didn’t carry out such an act but there are hidden hands behind this. Security authorities doing something against the Libyan community, especially the youth there. He didn’t travel. The proof is that I checked his two passports and there wasn’t anything in them. He didn’t travel to Syria.”

Abedi’s father denied that he had belonged to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group though he said he commended the organisation. “I condemn anyone who says I belong to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. I commend them but I don’t belong to any organisation. The British government knows this. They know that I don’t belong to any organisation,” he said.

“We are not part of these acts. We lived in this society, the English society and even my neighbours on the BBC praised me and my son and my family. And they know me and my sons well. We condemn these terrorist acts on civilians, innocent people.”

Turkish officials have said Abedi passed through Istanbul on his way to the UK but there were no records of him entering Syria during his travels.

The German authorities confirmed that Abedi flew to the western German city of Düsseldorf, four days before the Manchester attack.

It is known that the 22-year-old had travelled to Germany before, including a visit to the financial city of Frankfurt. News of his presence in Germany has raised suspicions that he may have had contact with Islamist networks there and received logistics training from them.

Düsseldorf is in the state of North Rhein Westphalia where Anis Amri, the Berlin Christmas market attacker, spent time. Security authorities in the state have come under fire for their patchy surveillance of Amri, who was allowed to travel around Germany freely, despite authorities’ misgivings about him.

North Rhine–Westphalia is home to hundreds of people considered to be potential security threats due to their close links to Islamist groups. Security services have put 55 mosques in the state are under close observation by security services.

According to the German magazine Focus, Abedi was not apprehended by German authorities when he flew in to the country because he was not on any observation list of suspected Islamists.