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As election campaigning restarts following Manchester attack, UK opposition leader addresses root causes of ‘terror’.

Corbyn is a veteran socialist and anti-war campaigner [File: Darren Staples/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Britain’s foreign policy and intervention in wars abroad had fuelled the threat of “terrorism” at home, the leader of the UK’s main opposition party said on Friday, as a political truce after a Manchester suicide attack came to an end.

Less than two weeks before a general election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also vowed to reverse Prime Minister Theresa May’s police cuts and give the security services more resources if they needed them, saying Britain could not “be protected on the cheap”.

Although Corbyn said he did not want “to make a narrow party political point”, opponents accused him of exploiting Monday’s bombing by Salman Abedi, a Briton born to Libyan parents, who killed 22 people, including children, at the Manchester Arena after a concert by US singer Ariana Grande.

“No government can prevent every terrorist attack. But the responsibility of government is to minimise that chance, to ensure the police have the resources they need, that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country,” Corbyn said in a speech in the capital, London.

“Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services pointed out the connections between wars that we’ve been involved in or supported … in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home.”

Corbyn edges higher in polls

May’s Conservatives are leading in the opinion polls ahead of the June 8 election, and were widely expected to cruise to a landslide win when she called the vote in April.

But one survey on Thursday suggested their lead had been cut to just five points after she was forced to backtrack on a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their social care.

Corbyn, a socialist and veteran anti-war campaigner, said foreign policy was not solely to blame for “terrorism” but he would shy away from the interventionist approach that has seen Britain join military action in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan in recent years.

“We must be brave enough to admit the ‘war on terror’ is not working,” he said, vowing only to deploy troops when there was a clear need and a plan to secure a lasting peace.

His stance puts him not just at odds with May, who says he would put Britain’s security at risk if he won power, but also many in his own party, including former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair who led Britain into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think his timing is incredibly disappointing and crass given there is a live police operation,” Security Minister Ben Wallace told BBC radio. “I don’t think the substance of what he says is correct at all.”

Corbyn, who has already pledged 10,000 extra officers, also promised to reverse police cost-saving measures, many brought in by May in her former role as interior minister. Britain now has fewer officers than in 2001.

Amber Rudd, the interior minister, rejected suggestions cuts had hindered the authorities’ ability to prevent Monday’s attack.

“We must not imply that this terrorist activity wouldn’t have taken place if there had been more policing,” she said.

Suspect’s father held in Tripoli says ‘everything was normal’ with his son days before, as UK police make eight arrests.

by Al Jazeera

Police made arrests in the UK and Libya as the investigation into a suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a Manchester concert venue packed with children focused on tracking down a network of accomplices who authorities fear could strike again.

The father of the suspected bomber, identified as Salman Abedi, 22, told the Reuters news agency in the Libyan capital on Wednesday that he had last spoken to his son some five days ago by phone and “everything was normal”.

Ramadan Abedi, who was detained by a Tripoli counter-terrorism force during the interview, said his son Salman had told his family that he was heading on pilgrimage to Mecca.

“I spoke to him about five days ago … there was nothing wrong, everything was normal,” Abedi said.

The suspect blew himself up on Monday night at the Manchester Arena indoor venue at the end of a concert by US pop singer Ariana Grande attended by thousands of children and teenagers.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group.

Abedi also said he was sure Salman had not been a member of ISIL.

“Salman doesn’t belong to any organisation,” he said. “The family is a bit confused because Salman doesn’t have this ideology, he doesn’t hold these beliefs. We condemn these terrorist acts on civilians, innocent people.”

Police in Tripoli also arrested a brother of Abedi. A spokesman for the local counter-terrorism force said younger brother Hashem Abedi was arrested on suspicion of links with ISIL and was suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital.

A man arrested on Tuesday, one day after the attack at the was reported by British and US media to be Abedi’s other brother.

Manchester police, meanwhile, made several new arrests.

“We currently have eight people in custody in relation to Monday’s attack,” Ian Hopkins, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said in a statement on Thursday.

“The arrests have taken place in Manchester, Wigan and Duneaton, and we are now carrying out associated searches in relation to those arrests at a number of addresses,” he added.

Earlier, interior minister Amber Rudd said the bomber had recently returned from Libya. Her French counterpart Gerard Collomb said he had links with ISIL and had probably visited Syria as well.

Rudd also scolded US officials for leaking details about the investigation into the Manchester attack before British authorities were ready to go public.

The bomb used in the attack appeared to contain carefully packed shrapnel and have a powerful, high velocity charge, according to leaked photographs from the investigation published by the New York Times.

“We are furious. This is completely unacceptable,” a government ministry source said of the images “leaked from inside the US system”.

Hopkins, the Manchester police chief, said the leaks had “caused much distress for families that are already suffering terribly with their loss”.

The Manchester bombing raised concern across Europe.

Cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St Petersburg, Berlin and London have suffered attacks in the last two years.

The 22 victims in Manchester included an eight-year-old girl, several teenage girls, a 28-year-old man and a Polish couple who had come to collect their daughters.

Britain’s official threat level was raised to “critical”, the highest level, late on Tuesday, meaning an attack was expected imminently.

The Manchester bombing was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London’s transport network.

Rudd said up to 3,800 soldiers could be deployed on Britain’s streets, taking on guard duties to free up police to focus on patrols and investigation. An initial deployment of 984 had been ordered, first in London and then elsewhere.

Soldiers were seen at the Houses of Parliament, May’s Downing Street residence and at the London police headquarters at New Scotland Yard.