Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi met with members of an ISIS unit in Libya linked to the November 2015 terrorist attack that killed 130 victims and wounded hundreds more, a new report states.
Abedi, 22, met with members of the Katibat al-Battar al-Libi while in Tripoli and Sabratha, Libya,and remained in touch with the group while he was in the United Kingdom, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
According to a retired European intelligence chief, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Abedi communicated with the unit in Libya by either using disposable phones or through an intermediary in Germany or Belgium.
The Battar brigade was initially formed by Libyans who had been battle veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and was one of the first foreign jihadist groups to arrive in Syria in 2012, according to Cameron Colquhoun, a former senior counterterrorism analyst at Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters.
"One of the things I remember from my time is the fact that some of the baddest dudes in Al Qaeda were Libyan," said Colquhoun.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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