AFTERMATH – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:  British authorities are engaged in massive searches and raids, following this week's horrible attack in Manchester.  They are finding a great deal.  From the Independent: 

Police and security services have found bomb-making materials which could be primed for imminent attacks in the extensive raids following the Manchester suicide bombing, The Independent has learned.

One suspect device was blown up in a controlled explosion and security sources say that there is a real possibility that there are other materials yet to be found. The law agencies are convinced that a terrorist network had been established to carry out a sustained assault and further arrests are likely in and outside Manchester.

Meanwhile family members of the Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi have been arrested in Libya and the UK. The bomber’s father, Ramadan Abedi, was taken away in Tripoli by masked gunmen from a government militia as he was giving a television interview declaring that his dead son was innocent. Another son living in the city with him, Hashem, was detained soon afterwards, with Libyan officials stating that he had links with Isis. Salman Abedi’s mother, Samia Tabbal, and another son, Ismail, have been arrested in Manchester.

Three arrests were made on Tuesday night, and a further three arrests followed on Wednesday of a man in Wigan, a man in Nuneaton and a woman in Blackley, north Manchester. 

The focus is now very much on the Libyan connection. Abedi’s father was a fighter with an Islamist group banned by the UN’s Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee after the 9/11 attacks in New York. The Independent has learned he once worked for the Gaddafi regime’s security apparatus before turning towards hardline Islam: one of his associates once ran a group called the Islamic Martyrs’ Movement. 

COMMENT:  Let us also note that the British national election is two weeks away.  Clearly, the government wants to show that it is on top of things.  The oddsmakers give Theresa May's Conservative Party a strong chance at a sweeping victory.

May 25,  2017