27 May, 2017
Ariana Grande suspended her Dangerous Woman world tour and canceled several European shows Wednesday due to the deadly bombing at her concert in Manchester, England.
Five additional arrests were made in Britain on Wednesday as the sprawling investigation extended to Libya, where Abedi's father and a younger brother were detained in Tripoli.
Asked if he was known to the intelligence services, she said: "The security services will know a lot of people, it doesn't mean they are expected to arrest everybody that they know but it is somebody that they had known before and I'm sure when this invetigation concludes we'll be able to find out more".
A seventh person is arrested late Wednesday in connection with attack. A woman is arrested during a raid in the Blackley area of Manchester.
All the previous arrests were made in and around Manchester in northwest England where the suicide bombing took place.
"I think it's very clear this is a network we are investigating", said Chief Constable Ian Hopkins of the Manchester Police, as authorities raided properties thought to be connected to Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old suspected bomber who grew up in Manchester and died in the attack.
In Washington, the chairman of the U.S. House's Homeland Security Committee said the bomb used in the attack suggested a "level of sophistication" that might indicate its maker had foreign training. Hashem was taken into custody on suspicion of links to the Islamic State, while the father was detained to be questioned, officials said. He was picked up while allegedly receiving a money transfer from Salman Abedi.
The militia claims that the younger Abedi admitted knowledge about the Manchester attack and was in Britain for its planning.
"The military will be working under the Metropolitan Police Service command structure to provide static armed guarding at key locations", the police said in a statement on Wednesday.
The friend and another source in Manchester's Libyan community said Salman got his passport back after telling his father he was going on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
"This is not us", the 51-year-old Abedi said in a telephone interview from Tripoli.
Minister Gerard Collomb said Wednesday on BFM television that British and French intelligence have information that Abedi had been to Syria.
Investigators were also looking into possible links between Abedi and Abdalraouf Abdallah, a Libyan refugee from Manchester who was shot in Libya and later jailed in the United Kingdom for terror offenses, including helping Stephen Gray, a British Iraqi war veteran and Muslim covert, to join fighters in Syria.
The UK will hold a minute of silence in remembrance of the victims at 11 a.m. Thursday - two days after Prime Minister Theresa May announced that Britain's threat level had been raised from "severe" to "critical", and warned that a "further attack may be imminent".
Abedi's family have lived in the Fallowfield area of south Manchester for at least 10 years, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper. None of the suspects have been identified.
Greater Manchester Police continued to raid buildings across the city on Wednesday as they close in on the terrorist network of Abedi.
"This evening we have been carrying out searches at an address in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, and arrested a man", the Greater Manchester Police force said in a statement.
Organizers of Radio 1's Big Weekend music festival, slated this weekend in Hull, a hundred miles (160 km) east of Manchester, said those attending would have to go through two rounds of searches.
