This short post follows up on arguments put forward in an earlier post on Adrian Elms, the Westminster Bridge Killer.
Gleaning from different reports across several newspapers: Mr Abedi's former schoolfriends say that he was a good footballer, but very short tempered and very gullible. His classmates were able to manipulate him into believing improbable things and even carrying out foolish actions, for their amusement. Short temper and gullibility can be subtle signs of brain damage, in fact. Minor brain damage is now known to be a distinct possibility when heading footballs, especially when intercepting a hard kick at goal, and there are those who would like to see deliberate headers eliminated from the game.
His more recent friends and acquaintances seem to differ on whether or not he attended the mosque frequently, but the Iman of his local mosque says that he did come, but then gave the Iman a "look of hate" when he preached against ISIS, and attended much less frequently after that. His neighbours say that Mr Abedi had taken to praying very loudly in the street in the weeks prior to the attack on the Manchester Arena.
The friends also say he was a cannabis user: this seems to be a non-negotiable requirement before one can become a jihadee. Cannabis not only makes people paranoid: frequent use, and even the casual use of strong cannabis (skunk), seems to break down the natural barriers in the human mind against killing a fellow human being. This isn't exactly news: the "Assassins" from Persia in the middle ages, were fed strong hashish on the orders of the Sultan who controlled them. The link between cannabis and lethal violence is well established on the basis of centuries of evidence, and foolishly ignored by those, such as Liberal Democrats and the American "Alt. Right", who want to legalize its abuse.
Unlike driving a car into a crowd, making a bomb that works requires some technical skill, especially if the explosives have to be made from basic raw materials. (Welsh Nationalist terrorists, for example, used, exclusively, gelignite stolen from mines and quarries, and it took a few years for Irish Nationalists to fully master the art of making explosives from ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. Even then, they generally used commercially-manufactured Semtex explosive to initiate their "co-op mix".) ISIS would want any member who actually had that explosive-making skill, to carry out more than one attack before becoming a martyr, so it is very unlikely that Mr Abedi actually made the bomb that he carried into the foyer of the Manchester Arena. At least, not alone.
If Mr Abedi was selected by a less expendable jihadee, to carry the bomb, then it seems reasonable to suppose that he wasn't picked at random, over the internet, but instead nominated and recruited by somebody who knew him quite well, perhaps a former classmate who remembered how unusually gullible and easily manipulated he had been at school.
There are probably two or three bomb-makers/organizers, and perhaps several mentally-ill and drug-addicted "bomb mules," still to find. The experience from Palestine, is that suicide bombers can be heavily manipulated, or coerced, into carrying out attacks, but it's always going to be the mentally or socially susceptible ones who will be chosen for this purpose. Coerced suicide bombers frequently surrender to Israeli forces at the last moment, rather than kill innocent people.
It has just emerged that Mr Abedi had expressed pro-terrorist views at college, and that at least two people had telephoned the anti-terrorist hotline about him a few years ago.
Update: 25/5/2017 It is becoming apparent that if anyone was manipulating Salman Abedi into adopting terrorist ideology and carrying out a terrorist act, it was his father and brothers, who are now all in custody in Tripoli and Manchester. There's probably not the slightest chance that they would have carried out a suicide attack themselves.
Update: 4/5/2017 The bomb that Salman Abedi used, was the same design as that used by the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside the Stade De France in Paris many months earlier, it is not true to say that he acted completely alone.
It has just emerged that Mr Abedi had expressed pro-terrorist views at college, and that at least two people had telephoned the anti-terrorist hotline about him a few years ago.
Update: 25/5/2017 It is becoming apparent that if anyone was manipulating Salman Abedi into adopting terrorist ideology and carrying out a terrorist act, it was his father and brothers, who are now all in custody in Tripoli and Manchester. There's probably not the slightest chance that they would have carried out a suicide attack themselves.
Update: 4/5/2017 The bomb that Salman Abedi used, was the same design as that used by the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside the Stade De France in Paris many months earlier, it is not true to say that he acted completely alone.
