Police had intel on the Manchester Arena bomber years before the attack

By Angelina Mokbel

According to an investigation, cops discovered intelligence linking the Manchester Arena bomber to another suspected terrorist three years before the 2017 explosion, but it was never passed on for further examination.

During an investigation into Abdalraouf Abdallah in 2014, detectives discovered the name, photo, and phone number of Salman Abedi.

In November 2014, they discovered Abedi had exchanged over 1,300 text messages with Abdallah. Frank Morris, a former senior investigating officer at North West Counter Terrorism Policing (NWCTP) who discovered the text conversations, told the bombing inquest on Monday that the intelligence should have been sent on for “development,” but it wasn’t.

The text messages were only traced back to Abedi after he detonated a suicide vest at the end of an Ariana Grande performance on May 22, 2017, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds more. Abedi’s text exchanges with Abdallah, who was convicted and jailed for terrorism offenses in 2016 after being at the center of a network that helped British Muslim men travel to Syria or Libya to fight, were nothing out of the ordinary.
Morris, on the other hand, believes that more should have been done to prove Abedi’s identity.