The suicide bomber who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert was rescued from a war zone by the UK, according to a new report
- Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert last year, used to live in Libya.
- According to the Daily Mail, citing defense sources, Abedi was evacuated by the Royal Navy after the country descended into civil war.
- Abedi was a British citizen, so was eligible for evacuation, although his family roots are in Libya.
- After returning to the UK, Abedi was radicalised, and ended up carrying out the worst terror attack in Britain for more than a decade.
The suicide bomber who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert last year had been rescued from the Libyan civil war by the British military, according to a new report.
The Daily Mail, citing defence sources, said that Salman Abedi was evacuated from war-torn Libya in 2014 by the Royal Navy, along with his brother.
Abedi, 19 at the time, came back to Britain on HMS Enterprise, according to the Mail. Over the course of the next few years, Abedi became more extreme in his views, and ultimately carried out the Manchester bombing, Britain's worst terrorist attack for more than a decade.
The Mail said Abedi, who grew up mostly in Britain, had left home to visit family whilst on a gap year between high school and university.
While he was in the country, the civil war which deposed longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi flared up, and the Abedi brothers were stuck.
Britain's security agencies had Abedi on their radar even before his time in Libya, and monitored him while he was there, according to a British government report into the bombing.
His radicalisation got worse once he was back. According to an investigation by Sky News, Abedi became part of a group of young men in the UK which included fighters who were involved with ISIS.
Abedi continued to visit Libya, where his parents were living, and reportedly sourced materials for his bomb while he was there.
He carried out the Manchester bombing only a few days after returning from a visit to Libya. He carried out the attack with a home-made bomb made of explosives and shrapnel stuffed into a backpack.
Abedi detonated his bomb just after Grande had finished singing. He was standing in the foyer of the 21,000-seater venue as children and their parents were leaving the concert on a Monday evening.
The bomb killed 22 people, the youngest of whom was an eight-year-old girl. 200 people suffered serious injuries.