RedHanded - Episode 247 – The 2017 Manchester Bombing

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.

Starting point is 00:00:38 I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Before we get on with today's episode, do you want full-length bonus episodes of Red Handed? I feel like you probably do. I don't. You don't? I'm fucking sick of it.

Starting point is 00:00:50 Then stop fucking listening to me right now. Because last month, for our delightful patrons, we released an episode on none other than Joe Methney. If you recognise that name, you'll know it's because he is, of course, the hamburger cannibal serial killer. And this month, we are doing a big old deep dive into the world of DNA, exploring three different cases in which DNA helped or totally fucked everything up. It's a big mix. It's a big mix. DNA, my friends, I've been saying it for fucking years. It's not all it's cracked up to be. It's definitely not a magic bullet. And also, just because people always, always, always ask about Patreon,

Starting point is 00:01:30 yes, when you sign up to become a patron of Red Handed, you get full access to the entire back catalogue. That is weeks, months, maybe even years of extra delicious content. I don't know. I haven't added up the hours, but there's a lot of it. And we also, of course, do our weekly after-party show on Patreon. And that's for everybody from like $5 and up.

Starting point is 00:01:52 And it is, of course, called Under the Duvet, where we talk about anything and everything from what's going on in Ukraine to Chris Rock getting slapped and, of course, the Johnny Depp, the Amber Heard shit show. And on the topic of the shititshow that is captivating the world

Starting point is 00:02:08 and my entire TikTok for you page at the moment, everyone is talking about and watching the Johnny Depp trial, including us. And good news is there is a company who is streaming the entire thing. And that company is called Law and Crime. And they have a great daily depth recap podcast called Law and Crime Sidebar, which you can and should definitely check out. Here's how it works. Every morning, they recap the top three moments from the defamation trial and provide analysis with the reporters who are actually in the courtroom. So if you fancy that, it's called Law and Crime Sidebar,

Starting point is 00:02:48 and it's available on Apple and on Spotify, and probably some other places as well. And there is also a video version on Law and Crime's very own YouTube channel. That's enough of that. If you're on the internet, you are getting more than your fair share of the Johnny Depp, Amber Heard stuff. So let's talk about something else, shall we? No more internet for you today.

Starting point is 00:03:06 No more internet. Get off the internet. So today's case is a biggie. And if you, during this episode, hear some gentle snoring in the background, it's not me or Hannah. It might be me. It might be Hannah. But it is most definitely a very little but very loud dog we have joining us in the studio today. As I walked into the office today, the receptionist was like, oh, my God, he's such a unit.

Starting point is 00:03:31 He is. And he is the definition of an absolute unit. I want to get him a little jacket that says security. We'll post a picture of him. He is. Well, I feel like we're just being really cryptic. He's blue, too. He's not my blue. He's blue, too. And if you're a patron, you'll know exactly who blue, well, I feel like we're just being really cryptic. He's blue too. He's not my blue. He's blue too. And if you're a patron, you'll know exactly who blue too is. But I'll post a picture of him so you can see what a fucking unit he is and also understand why the snoring is quite so loud. But we can't put him in any other room because he starts barking. So he has to sit in

Starting point is 00:03:59 here apparently. So let's kick off. In the UK, the US and most of the West, we live safe in the knowledge that around the clock, invisible powers are making sure that we're protected from terrorism. We feel safe travelling on the underground knowing that there are police officers and CCTV watching our every move. We feel safe on planes knowing that everyone's been searched head to toe before getting on board and that nobody's carrying anything over 50 ml of liquid for some reason. And we also feel safe sending our kids to a concert, knowing that everyone will be stopped, searched, and searched again before they get inside. All in all, we wander around dealing with our day-to-day lives, securing the knowledge that the big scary stuff like terrorism is being dealt with by powers far greater than our own.

Starting point is 00:04:48 But what if, through negligence or coincidence, someone was able to slip through the net at every single step? Well, that's exactly what happened five years ago last Sunday when 22-year-old Salman Abidi detonated a homemade shrapnel bomb in the foyer of the Manchester Arena here in the UK. The blast and the shrapnel that tore through the crowd killed 22 people, including seven children, the youngest of whom was just eight years old. And it left another thousand people injured. I know this wasn't that long ago. I know it was in 2017.

Starting point is 00:05:26 But it feels like it literally happened last year. I can't believe it's been five years since it happened, to be honest. I don't know. I feel kind of the opposite. I feel like it happened in a completely different world. Oh my god, no. Different universe. And also, again, it didn't happen that long ago. It was definitely when we were very much adults. I can't believe a thousand people were injured. That I do not remember. Fucking hell. In the moments immediately after the attack, as dust rained down from inside the arena and before the deafening silence was

Starting point is 00:05:58 shattered by the sound of screams and panic, it would be difficult to imagine where this chain of events began. You might be thinking that the plot was hatched by a sophisticated terrorist organisation hidden away deep in the Middle East. But actually, it began in the minds of two teenage boys who were taken by their father to fight in a war zone. Salman Abidi was born in Manchester on New Year's Eve in 1994. His father, Ramadan Abidi, I didn't know people could be called Ramadan. Maybe it's like Christmas Humphreys. Christmas Humphreys, my homeboy.

Starting point is 00:06:31 Ramadan Abidi is like... Is Christmas Humphreys. Is Christmas Humphreys. Perfect, makes wonderful sense. So they've got Christmas Humphreys as their father. And their mother, Samir Tabal, both arrived in the UK just a few years before he was born and they arrived in the UK because they had fled the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. After spending some time in London, Ramadan and Sameer moved up to South Manchester where eventually they managed

Starting point is 00:06:57 to secure a council house. The home that Salman was born into was an exceptionally religious one. The Abidi family followed the reformist Salafi branch of Sunni Islam. The Salafi branch of Islam is grounded in the desire to return to the traditions of the first three generations of Muslims, who they believe followed the purest form of Islam. In essence, Salafi Muslims reject Islam's innovation and modernisation and support the implementation of traditional Muslim values. It's like what ISIS want is an identical world to the one that Muhammad lived in and the first three generations of Muslims.

Starting point is 00:07:39 So some of those traditional values include slavery, having a sabaya, which is a literal sex slave that ISIS government give you a stipend for if you happen to have one. And, you know, specific beard lengths, very specific things. Yeah, exactly. I mean, ISIS follow, you know, more like Wahhabism, but it's not a million miles away. And I think the best way to think of like Salafi Muslims is, it's not atypical. We see this in other religions too. It's like maybe thinking of it as like a kind of Amish Islam, but not living in the rural backwaters. And what's also important to mention here is that Western academics sort Salafi Muslims into two camps, purists and activists. Purists are content to live by their ideals without enforcing them on others, whereas the activists believe in converting

Starting point is 00:08:33 others to their beliefs and enforcing their ideals through political and social means. And the vast majority of Salafi Muslims in the UK are purists. So they're the form that just want to kind of live their lives under that ideal. And they're happy to kind of quietly follow their beliefs without pushing them on others. It's only a very, very small number of activists that are really present. But as usual, with that type of more hardliner, they might be a minority, but they're usually the loudest. Yes. If this isn't your first rodeo listening to us talk about a radicalised terrorist, you're probably thinking, I'm pretty sure that there's a third category. clever sausage, an incredibly small minority of Salafi Muslims are jihadists who believe in an armed struggle to enforce or restore their strict religious values. We can't say for sure which camp

Starting point is 00:09:33 Salman Abidi's family belonged to. However, what we do know is that even among the sizable Libyan diaspora living in Fallowfield, the Adidi family were considered to be incredibly traditional. Salman was one of five siblings who all attended local schools and colleges. According to the Times, when Salman was attending Burnage Academy for Boys, he was part of a small group of students who accused a teacher of Islamophobia after they were asked during an RE lesson what they thought about suicide bombers. Some of Salman's fellow students went on to report him after he said that being a suicide bomber was okay. Uh-oh. Yeah, double uh-ohs. Salman developed into a hot-headed 17-year-old,

Starting point is 00:10:20 blending his strict religious values with local Manchester gang culture. Salman Abidi had become, or at least wanted to be, a religious roadman who smoked weed and got in trouble with the law but also believed in extreme Muslim values. When I lived in Poplar, I was very familiar with the religious roadmen. There was a car park outside, not the flat you came to, the flat I was in before, the one that flooded. Great times for me. There were drug dealers in the car park and, not the flat you came to, the flat I was in before, the one that flooded. Great times for me. There were drug dealers in the car park, and I'm not generalizing. I'm not saying, oh, that looks like a drug dealer, so it must be a drug dealer. They were drug dealers, and I know that because I know people who bought drugs from them.

Starting point is 00:10:55 But they would go to mosque every week, prayed five times a day, very respectful of their mothers. But being a drug-dealing roadman was okay. Yeah. I've seen this before. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. but their mothers. But being a drug-dealing road man was okay. Yeah. I've seen this before. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle.

Starting point is 00:11:29 And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry.

Starting point is 00:12:05 The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses.

Starting point is 00:12:40 I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. So you might be wondering, how? A jihadist sympathising roadman had gone undetected by the authorities. But according to Lord David Anderson QC, who is an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, in the ITV documentary on this case, these views are not unheard of amongst certain groups of young British Muslim men.

Starting point is 00:13:21 But obviously the overwhelming majority of them grow out of it. Because remember, like, when he's saying things like suicide bombings are okay, etc. He's a teenager. And yeah, it's shocking in the context of knowing what he goes on to do, of course. But as teenagers, you are often going to take like a contrarian view of things. If everyone in the class is like, oh my god, obviously, suicide bombing is awful. You might be tempted to be the one kid that's like, no, I agree with it. I understand why he did it. It's like a bit of an edgelord move. It's an edgelord move. And also, there will always be people who will make the argument

Starting point is 00:13:54 that you can't make real change without violence. Exactly. And there's going to be people who say that. I'm not necessarily agreeing with that. I'm saying that people will say things like that. And I think especially when it comes out of the mouth of a teenage boy, I kind of see why he slipped through the net at this point. I'm going to stop saying that very, very soon. But at this point, OK. Basically, this kind of thing that he was saying in class,

Starting point is 00:14:17 in the eyes of the British intelligence, Salman Abidi's jihadist sympathies were not a huge red flag. But that doesn't mean that there weren't a shit ton of other red flags surrounding Mr Salman. And here they are. On Tuesday the 15th of February 2011, so we're going back a little bit, protests broke out in Libya causing a chain of events that would eventually lead to the Manchester Arena bombing six years later. How is that possible? Well shut up because I'm going to tell you. After decades of growing unhappiness,

Starting point is 00:14:48 security forces loyal to the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, shot into a crowd of protesters who were calling for an end to his regime. I once went to a wedding where the mother of the groom looked exactly like Colonel Gaddafi. And it was when he was on the run, I think, it was a really long time ago. Everyone was like...

Starting point is 00:15:07 Oh, right. I thought you meant at his worst. She looked like him, not in the golden toilet era, when he was on the run. Exactly. She looked like an on-the-run Omar Gaddafi. She absolutely did. It was hysterical.

Starting point is 00:15:20 That's so funny. Anyway, let's get back to the real Colonel Gaddafi. I mean, they might be the same person. knows he was on the run at the time. Did you ever see them in the same room at the same time? I certainly have never seen that woman. I rest my case. And Colonel Gaddafi in the same room. Sustained.

Starting point is 00:15:37 Colonel Gaddafi, his forces shoot into a crowd of protesters. That never goes well. And that sparked what is now called the first Libyan civil war. Obviously, they didn't call it that at the time, because they didn't know how many there would be. Gather round, children. We're about to enter the first Libyan civil war. So we do not have time in just one episode to go into exactly how and why Muammar Gaddafi became the leader of Libya and why he was overthrown. That would be its own podcast and we don't have time. We've got to keep moving. It's a series of podcasts. I've talked about this show before on Red Handed. Listen to Dictators. Dictators do like a multi-part on Muammar Gaddafi. It is so interesting because he really came from nowhere.

Starting point is 00:16:20 He was like not even the eldest son of like a family within like an impoverished tribe. He was like a part of like a Bedouin community tribe and just like came from absolutely nothing to go on to become Colonel Mama Gaddafi. So it's well worth a listen. So yeah, go and listen to that. But right now, listen to this. We're going to try our best to give you the very basics and tell you how it allowed a radicalised teenager to slip through the counter-terrorist net. Mahmoud Mohammed Abu Minya al-Gaddafi came to power in 1969, aged just 27 years old.

Starting point is 00:16:56 And he came to power after he overthrew the previous Libyan ruler, King Idris I, in a bloodless coup. During his first decade in power, Gaddafi made huge social changes to Libya, under what he called Islamic socialism. He made huge strides to shed the grip of the West over the country and, of course, its valuable oil fields. Gaddafi enforced a 51% state ownership of all oil production on Libyan soil, along with other social reforms, including rent caps and strict rules on gender pay equality. For the first time in Libya's history, women, by law, had to be paid equally to men,

Starting point is 00:17:38 although this only really benefited the women of Libya's middle classes. All in all, though, this caused a huge rise in Libya's GDP from $3.8 billion in 1969 to a whopping $24.5 billion just 10 years later. So far, so capitalist. Well, I guess he's taking 50% state ownership of oil production, though. So I'm like, that's pretty nationalizing of him. So, yeah, I think he was big into like, let's say it's socialism. And it is really interesting because obviously I think people in the West are obviously like Gaddafi, bad, dictator, bad. And yeah, I'm not saying he was like the best guy ever.

Starting point is 00:18:21 But he was actually kind of a real reformer insofar as the middle east goes and the reason that he was actually torn down as we'll go on to discover is because people thought he was too liberal which is really interesting if you don't know enough about mama gaddafi as if there's like a a level to which one must know if you don't know enough about him i've actually got b-tech and gaddafi so then i think you'd be forgiven for thinking he was torn down because he was tyrannical and like oppressing the people. And maybe some people will make that argument. But really, it was because people thought he was far too liberal. So let's get back to what he was doing.

Starting point is 00:18:56 So in 10 years, he makes, you know, a huge transformation of the nation's GDP and its economy. And then 10 years later in 1979, the GDP per capita of Libya was, get this, even higher than that of the UK. That's mad. Uh-huh. But all of this prosperity and social reform came at a cost. Mahmoud Gaddafi refused to cooperate or be anywhere near under the thumb of the West. And so, of course, this left Libya isolated.

Starting point is 00:19:28 Yes, this is where bad, tyrannical Gaddafi comes in because on top of, like, isolating Libya, his treatment of non-Arabic Libyans came under huge fire internationally and his government was accused of multiple human rights violations. Over time, Gaddafi's grip over Libya started to weaken. His social reforms and high spending had caused significant national debts and Islamic socialism had ruffled the feathers of hardline Islamist extremists. In the 1990s, a number of extremist groups started to gain momentum in Libya,

Starting point is 00:20:03 one of which was called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. In 1993, there was a failed army coup to remove Gaddafi. His government were coming down hard on members of radical Islamic groups that wanted to overthrow him. And Salman Abidi's family fled Libya that same year. We can't say for sure whether his father was connected to any of these extremist groups at the time. But 17 years later, in early 2011, Ramadan Abidi, Christmas Humphreys, travelled back to Libya to fight with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group against the Gaddafi regime. So it's starting to make sense why his son thinks that suicide bombings is fine. And it makes double sense because Ramadan Abidi did not go to Libya on his own.

Starting point is 00:20:50 He took his three sons with him, Hisham, Ismail and Salman. The first Libyan civil war was short but brutal, lasting just over eight months and ending in October 2011. Libyan rebels successfully toppled the Gaddafi regime with air support from NATO and the UN. Both sides were accused of committing war crimes with reports of torture, mass executions and the killing of civilians throughout the conflict. You do have to wonder why NATO and the UN got involved. I don't believe for a second it was because of human rights violations, but much more because he took 51%

Starting point is 00:21:27 of oil production under state ownership. Yeah, and they really hate it when they do that. And he was like, I don't like the West. Fuck the West. I'm not going to take part in anything to do with you. And we've got loads of oil. So surprise, surprise, the UN and NATO turn up with their air missiles.

Starting point is 00:21:41 Again, I'm not defending Mahmoud Gaddafi. I'm just saying that it's interesting when the West likes to get involved. That's all I'm saying. So yes, both sides accused of committing war crimes. Lots of bad shit going on, especially for the civilians involved and caught in the middle of this.

Starting point is 00:21:58 And in amongst the mess was Salman Abidi, taken there by his father at just 17 years old into a fucking war zone. And he was there, of course, to fight with his father and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Since the conflict, NATO and the UN have both been criticised for their support of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which had already been designated as a terrorist organisation for its direct links with al-Qaeda. This is something we also saw, of course, when we covered ISIS, the Bethnal Green Girls, in the two-parter we did last year. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Starting point is 00:22:34 That is a big, like, slogan the West likes to use when we get involved. We will periodically side with various terrorist groups to fight other causes that are now beneficial to us in various parts of the world and then we're like how did iraq get all of these guns that now they're shooting at us yeah how did that happen who sold them those exactly we also saw on twitter today please find it there is an amazing video of george bush Oh, my God. George W., obviously. Oh, my God. We'll leave the link in the episode description in case you can't find it.

Starting point is 00:23:08 I'm actually just going to play it because I won't do it justice. And we'll forget to put the link in. Who are we kidding? Yeah. The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.

Starting point is 00:23:32 I mean, of Ukraine. Iraq, anyway. Oh, my God. 75. You're a war criminal is what you are, my friend. And all those people laughing. Yeah, like, oh, do you remember that funny little invasion of Iraq

Starting point is 00:23:46 that cost loads of money and lives? Yeah, yeah, because this is the full rehabilitation of George Bush's image that has taken place since Trump became president, where it was just like, oh, he's just a little war criminal. Now he's cuddly, cute George Bush. So because NATO and the UN were supporting the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group because it...

Starting point is 00:24:08 Served their purposes. Yeah, it served their purposes at the time. That meant that three teenage members were able to walk straight back into the UK, no questions asked. And once the fighting had ended, Salman's mother and father remained in Libya, determined to settle in their home country now that it had been liberated of its oppressors. But Salman and his younger brother Hasham and his older brother Ismail were allowed to return to the UK completely unchecked. That is mind-boggling. Literally fighting for a rebel group in a civil war. And everyone knows that's what you're doing. Yeah. No questions. Not like, what were you doing in Libya?

Starting point is 00:24:46 Yeah. And they weren't there fighting because of Mahmoud Gaddafi's ill-treatment of non-Arabs in Libya. They were doing it because they thought he was far too socially progressive. And all of that happened not because the British government

Starting point is 00:24:58 or the British Secret Services didn't see the fighters returning from Libya as potential terrorist threats. Of course they knew. They know everything. They're the Secret Service. But it was because, diplomatically speaking, they couldn't detain fighters from a war that they had directly supported. Yep. Let that sink in.

Starting point is 00:25:21 Yeah, the optics of that aren't great. So after coming back to the UK, Salman joined a part-time Arabic course at Manchester College. During this time, according to the BBC, Salman was reported to an anti-terrorism hotline. Not once, but twice. Wow. I imagine they are keeping their eye on part-time Arabic courses. And this is the thing, the reports that were made against him to this terrorism hotline weren't just done by like random people.

Starting point is 00:25:47 Not that that wouldn't have been bad enough. But one of those times, one of those reports was actually by a local community support worker. So someone whose literal job it is to be in the community and see what's up. And this person made the report against Salman for saying things about suicide bombings that had caused people to worry. Then in September 2012, Ramadan Abidi posted a picture online of Salman's younger brother Hashim posing with a Soviet-made light machine gun. And the caption read, Hashim the lion dot dot dot training. Ramadan also posted on Facebook sympathizing with an al-Qaeda operative who'd been captured by American forces in Libya. Basically, none of this is therefore a secret.

Starting point is 00:26:37 They are posting on social media about being at a literal fucking training camp with a massive fucking gun and very vocally talking about their sympathies for things like suicide bombings. So not great. In 2014, after two years away from their parents, Salman and Hashem Abidi returned to Libya, this time to fight in the country's second civil war. If you thought the rise and fall of Gaddafi was complicated, it is a absolute breeze in comparison to the second Libyan civil war. If you thought the rise and fall of Gaddafi was complicated, it is a absolute breeze in comparison to the second Libyan civil war. And there's actually too much for a full red-handed rundown. So what we're going to do instead is, I mean, almost essentially the same thing. We're going to give you a really complicated subject condensed into one paragraph or less. Paragraph,

Starting point is 00:27:21 where did that come from? A bit northern then. don't know where that's come from the second libyan civil war was mostly a four-way fight that resulted from the power vacuum following gaddafi's downfall one of those parties vying for power was islamic state who um don't really need an introduction so we'll move on and at, Al-Qaeda, who also need no introduction, but if you're interested in Al-Qaeda, we did a podcast with the Imperial War Museum with Shiraz Meir, who actually has a book called Salafi Jihadism. Go and listen to that because he's a fascinating guy. Yes, it's called Conflict of Interest.

Starting point is 00:28:00 That's what the podcast is called. And you can find the episode that we did. It came out on September the 11th last year so it'll be quite easy to find and also just to self-promote once again if you go back and listen to our two-parter on isis and the bethnal green girls and shamima begum we do a really really deep dive there into the history of isis al-qaeda how they came to form how they fight each other etc and it's well worth a listen if if I do say so myself. At first glance, it seems strange that two radical Islamic groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda would be fighting on different sides. The two groups actually have a lot of theological and ideological differences. My basic understanding is that ISIS is like caliphate now and Al-Qaeda is like caliphate

Starting point is 00:28:43 in a bit. Yeah, that's one of the big ones. Again, go back and listen to the Bednar Green episode because we do it much more justice there. But the other points are also that ISIS is a literal death cult. They believe that the end of the world is imminent, that the apocalypse is coming, and for the apocalypse to come, they need to kill as many people as possible to hasten the end. Al-Qaeda are a bit more like, we want to be alive and live on this world, but just under really, really strict Islamic laws.

Starting point is 00:29:11 Also, Al-Qaeda are much more focused on external enemies like America and, you know, sticking the finger to the West. Whereas ISIS are like, we don't give a fuck. We will kill anybody. And they're also much more into persecuting other Muslims, whereas Al-Qaeda are like not that into that. But again, that's a huge like watered down version. We have done a deep dive before. Yeah. All we can really take away from that explanation

Starting point is 00:29:38 of this Libyan civil war situation is that it does sound like quite a terrible place to go on holiday. Unless you're really into going on holidays to fight in civil wars, in which case it's perfect. Because that's what the Abidi brothers were totally up for. Salman and his brother Hashim went on what they called a gap year to Libya. The boys spent around six months fighting alongside the same radical Islamic group as their father Ramadan, the same one that had links to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. But while fighting, it's believed that Salman and Hashim also came into contact with the Katiba al-Bittar al-Libi, often known in the media as the Batar Brigade.

Starting point is 00:30:24 So that's what we're going to call them from now on because that's much easier to say also. The Batar Brigade is a group of seasoned Islamic State fighters made up mostly of Libyans, but also including French-speaking recruits from Europe. Members of this Batar Brigade were reportedly responsible for the horrific 2015 Paris attacks just a year later. And if you want to hear us talk more about that, again, we have covered it in an episode called Charlie Hebdo and the murder of Samuel Paty, in which we did a big old deep dive into. I think we only touched on the Bataclan attacks, but we did a big deep dive into Charlie Hebdo. So go and listen to that.

Starting point is 00:31:09 Just sort of the climate in France regarding any religions at all. Yes, because there is a much more cultural nuance to the situation in France compared to everywhere else in Europe. Although the UK is the country that has suffered the most number of terror attacks, France is second. And they have this whole idea of laïcité. It's all very interesting. Go listen to that episode. We're well off track. Let's keep going. Obviously, the Paris 2015 attacks took the lives of over 130 people. They were absolutely horrendous. And this group were involved or claim to be involved in that. So in theory, this ISIL group, because remember, we're talking Libya, not Syria. So it's ISIL, not ISIS, would have been the enemy for Salman and his brother. But, as a terrorism expert told The Guardian,

Starting point is 00:31:49 things in the second Libyan civil war became much more fluid. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it.

Starting point is 00:32:28 Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses,

Starting point is 00:33:01 hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. ISIL and al-Qaeda started to align against their shared enemies. It's not quite clear why the Islamic State struck such a chord with Salman Abidi, but it did. His sister Jommer suggested to the Wall Street Journal that during his gap year, Salman had actually spent time

Starting point is 00:33:41 fighting in Syria. And there's French intelligence to back that up too. He's just running around all over the Middle East fighting with terrorists. And he was just periodically coming back to the UK and no one was batting an eyelid. You literally got pulled up in security because you had like a little bottle of fucking spray. Yeah, I had an aerosol sun cream in my bag. I've been taken into a room at Amsterdam airport for separate questioning because,

Starting point is 00:34:14 not because of what you're thinking. Because of all of the heroin in her bag. Because of all of the heroin I was taking. Because I really needed to wee and so I was making quite... So you looked shifty.

Starting point is 00:34:24 Because I looked shifty because I was going to piss myself. And I was acting quite shifty in the queue. And I think they were watching me. And then when I got to the top of the queue, they took me off to go speak to somebody. I was like, I'm actually going to urinate myself. I don't have anything inside me except loads of urine. As you can see from this x-ray, I really need to go to the toilet. And if somebody searches me, I hope you're prepared.

Starting point is 00:34:49 I hope they're into water sports because they're going to get fucking pissed on. Get a fucking anorak first. A cagoule. A piss cagoule. Because you, sir, are going to be covered in my piss. When we were coming back from Bali, saru wanted to smuggle loads of fruit i didn't do it i decided against it in the end which was good because they x-ray every single bag in denpasar airport so we were just watching our backs and saru was like this is where i would

Starting point is 00:35:17 have gone to fruit jail the fruit though was so good i was like maybe i could sneak a bit back no no they x-ray they know they know what you're trying to do i googled good. I was like, maybe I could sneak a bit back. No. No. They know what you're trying to do. I googled it and it was like, I saw the words prosecution. Prison. Prison. And I was like, maybe I don't need to take this fruit home. I don't need five snake fruits. That just get thrown in the bin in front of me and then I go to fruit prison.

Starting point is 00:35:43 Once when I was, Hannah can attest to this, when I go to humid prison once when I was Hannikin attests to this when I go to humid tropical places my hair becomes quite large yes yeah and I was coming back once from Mexico via Florida and I shit you not the woman who was like searching me while I went through security because I set off the little alarm and then she was like body searching me put her both her hands inside my hair and like had a little feel around. I was like, whoa, that's so gross and funny. Stop hiding mangoes in your hair. And then I pissed on her. Right. So back to Libya and back to Joma, who's talking to the Wall Street Journal. She said that Salman had witnessed American bombs killing Muslim children in Syria, which is not

Starting point is 00:36:25 unlikely. And perhaps this is what turned his focus away from fighting in the Middle East to thoughts of revenge on the West. It's also alleged that Salman was injured while fighting in northern Libya, a traumatic event that could have been another factor in his change of motivation. Quite frankly, I'm amazed he only got injured once. I know. He was there for two Libyan civil wars. Yeah. As, like, almost a child. And bopping into Syria.

Starting point is 00:36:53 Yeah, yeah. Crazy. So around half a year after they arrived in Libya, Salman and his brother Hashim felt that it was time to head back to sunny old England. In October 2014, Salman and Hashim were evacuated from the Libyan capital Tripoli, along with 100 other British nationals

Starting point is 00:37:09 who'd been stranded when the fighting kicked off. Yes, I did say evacuated. Guess who they were evacuated by? Noel Edmonds. Close. The Royal Navy on the HMS Enterprise. So they were rescued by the British government and they were sailed off to Malta

Starting point is 00:37:26 before being flown back to the UK. Again, even though they'd spent the previous six months fighting alongside Islamic State, they were rescued by the UK and brought back here. That is shocking. No red flags were raised when Salman and his brother Hashim re-entered the UK. But I would have gone to fruit jail.

Starting point is 00:37:48 So after getting back to Blighty, Salman enrolled in a business management course in Salford University, starting in 2015. But it didn't last long. He only stayed for the first academic year and quit the degree in early 2016. So Salman and his brother Hashim then spent the next year living in their parents' council house, claiming housing benefits and living off of Salman's student loan. Not long after this, on the 9th of May 2016, Greater Manchester's emergency services ran a simulated terrorist attack as a training exercise. This exercise involved an imitation suicide bomber detonating a fake bomb inside a busy shopping centre. The general vibe was that this training exercise did not go particularly well.

Starting point is 00:38:32 In fact, it would later be revealed that it took over an hour and a half before the fire brigade or ambulance service were deployed to the scene. And the scene was already set for another slip in the net that simulated bomb training exercise very interesting i know it happened in 2016 i wonder if it was based off of do you remember in 2009 when that school boy tried to was going to set off a bomb in a shopping center in bristol vaguely he didn't go through with it which is probably why okay you don't remember because he was caught but he was a public school boy been accepted into oxford very like upper middle class family built a bomb built a vest and walked into a shopping center and was going to detonate it

Starting point is 00:39:17 on his birthday of all days which is uh quite sad i bring that up because, well, obviously, because it seems to have inspired this training exercise, but also because his mum spoke for me at a conference once. So anybody who's listened to the show for a long time will know that I used to produce education conferences, specifically, I used to specialise in child safeguarding and also terrorism conferences, because when Prevent came out in schools, schools had to do a lot of training around that i don't even know how why and how this woman wanted to do it but she got in touch with me and she was like yeah i'd love to tell the story of how my son got radicalized built a bomb and tried to blow up a bristol shopping center it was remarkable and she got a standing ovation at the end and like more power to her i don't know if i'd be able to share that story. So, getting back to Salman.

Starting point is 00:40:10 Between late 2016 and early 2017, Salman cashed in on his student loan, sublet a flat in a local tower block, and began buying large amounts of acetone peroxide and other bomb-making materials with his brother Hashim. Honestly, it's like something out of Four Lions. It is. It's Four Lions. Yeah, and if you haven't watched Four Lions, shame on you. It is one of the few films that makes me laugh out loud. It is absolutely, in my opinion, it's absolutely hysterical.

Starting point is 00:40:36 So inside this local tower block that he was subletting a room in, Hashim and Salman created a bomb factory where they worked on home brewed explosives over the next few months. And this unusual activity finally set off what is known by British intelligence as a tripwire, which is an automated system that triggers when it sees signs that could point towards a potential terrorist threat, like somebody buying gallons and gallons of acetone peroxide. And because it's a government surveillance system run by MI5, we don't know exactly what it would take to set off this tripwire. I mean, we don't even know the algorithm that makes the Apple charts work. We definitely don't know this. But we would imagine that it would have something to do with Salman Abidi's unusual spending habits,

Starting point is 00:41:23 subletting of a separate flat, and getting unmarked packages delivered across Manchester and possibly all of his trips to the Middle East. Yeah, that'll do it. But the problem is this tripwire was dismissed by MI5 as a false alarm and chalked up to Salman's involvement in petty crime. So just him being a roadman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:41:47 Hand him down to the normal police. We've got diplomacy to do. It's not clear whether Ismail, the older brother, knew what Salman and Hashim were doing. But in April 2016, he contacted their parents, saying that he was worried. Clearly freaked out, Salman's parents returned to the UK and got Salman

Starting point is 00:42:05 and Hashim one-way tickets back to Libya where they could keep an eye on them. However, before he left for Libya, Salman bought a second-hand car which he filled with his and his brother's homemade explosives and he hid that car in a multi-storey car park. When he got to Libya, Salman's parents briefly took his passport away from him to try and stop him from going back to the UK, but it didn't work. Because on the 17th of May, 22-year-old Salman Abidi got his passport back and headed home to the UK. His trip back to Libya had set off another MI5 tripwire, which was taken a bit more seriously this time. An intelligence meeting to discuss the threat level of Salman Abidi was set up for the 31st of May, a date that would

Starting point is 00:42:52 unfortunately be nine days too late. Salman Abidi rented another local flat and recovered his explosives from the underground car park. He then began going to hardware shops around South Manchester, buying large amounts of nuts and bolts, of course to use as shrapnel in his homemade bomb. Over the next four days, Abidi constructed a large TPT shrapnel bomb, a type of explosive device favoured by terrorists because it doesn't contain specific chemicals that can be easily detected. It's not entirely clear how Salman and his brother Hashem had learnt how to construct such a sophisticated explosive device, my bet is in Libya. That would be the natural assumption. One theory is that they

Starting point is 00:43:38 stayed in contact with members of Islamic State after returning to the UK and that's where they got the information from. And another potential source of information is Salman's childhood friend, Abdul Ralph Abdullah, who had fought alongside Salman's father and was convicted of terrorism in 2014. Oh my god, honestly, it's like if we played a drinking game of like red flags around Salman Abidi through this episode, everyone will be dead by the end of it. When Abdullah was arrested, his phone showed texts between him and Salman talking about martyrdom. I was going to say something, but I was like, what's the point?

Starting point is 00:44:16 Yeah, she just looked at me. She looked at me like a disappointed parent. Salman also visited Abdullah when he was in prison before he made the bomb. But Abdullah has always denied any knowledge of Salman's terrorist intentions. Oh, well, I think we should definitely, definitely believe him then. Around the same time that all this was going on, in February 2017, then 24-year-old pop sensation Ariana Grande had set off on her Dangerous Woman tour. The tour was global

Starting point is 00:44:47 with a 76 date lineup covering North America, South America, Asia and Europe. And this tour was headline news. Did you know that Ariana Grande has a pet pig called Piggy Smalls? I did not, but now I do. During this entire tour, Ariana Grande was only coming to the UK twice. So it was an absolutely fucking enormous deal if you got tickets. And one of those who'd got himself a ticket was none other than Salman Abidi. Sadly, though, Abidi wasn't just a big old Arianator. Just a diehard fan of God is a Woman. Just loves it.

Starting point is 00:45:25 Can't get enough of it. He really like, he listens to it when he's building all his bombs. He's nuts for it. But no, Salman Abidi wasn't there to dance along to I can't name another Ariana Grande song. Literally any other song. Another song by Ariana Grande. No, no, no.

Starting point is 00:45:42 He had a much, much more sinister purpose for his ticket. Obviously, we can't say for sure why Salman Abidi chose Ariana Grande's concert to be the scene of his crime. But let's take a look at it anyway, because that's what we do. It was one of the biggest shows coming to Manchester that year. Everyone was talking about it. So he would have known, it would have been on his radar.

Starting point is 00:46:04 He might have just nabbed tickets to whatever he could. But thinking about what Ariana Grande represents, the choice feels as though it couldn't have been more deliberate. Ariana Grande is an empowered, sexualized young woman. She makes bank and she's not reliant on any man to support her. So Abidi may have seen Ariana Grande as a woman who was violating Islam and encouraging other young girls to do the same. But whatever his motivations, at 6pm on the 22nd of May 2017, around 14,000 fans began flooding into the Manchester arena to see Ariana Grande. And a little while later, Salman Abidi got in a taxi to his local MetroLink station. When he got out of the taxi,

Starting point is 00:46:50 he gave the driver a copy of the Quran and asked him to pray for him. Call the police. If you are a taxi driver, bus driver, train driver, and someone does that, call the fucking police. He then texted his brother Hashim and got on the metro. At 8.30pm, Salman Abidi arrived at the Manchester Arena's connected station. He was wearing a black tracksuit, a grey hat and an enormous backpack filled with explosives and bits of metal. After arriving,

Starting point is 00:47:20 Abidi, whose bag was so heavy he could barely walk, staggered into the station toilets. Inside the toilets, he spent around 10 minutes arming the bomb in his backpack, which had enough power in it to kill anyone within a 20 metre radius. 20 metres. That is enormous at a place that's going to have 14,000 people packed into it. Now you can understand why 1,000 people got hurt. I'm amazed it was only that now. Yeah, me too. As Abidi left the toilets with his bomb now armed,

Starting point is 00:47:52 two British Transport Police support officers did a security sweep of the toilet cubicles. They missed Abidi by 59 seconds. Fucking hell. Abidi then lugged his incredibly heavy backpack the short distance between the station and the foyer of the Manchester Arena, which is known as the City Room. Abidi was aiming to catch the crowds as they left the concert. Having never been to a concert in his life, Abidi turned up to the foyer early, expecting the show to have finished, or at least to be wrapping up.

Starting point is 00:48:26 He sat in the foyer, out of sight, and waited. And you may be wondering how in a country with a severe terrorist threat level, this young man was able to walk into the foyer of a crowded concert carrying a backpack so heavy he could barely walk. We'd all like to imagine that there's someone waiting and watching for that sort of thing. And there is. That evening, there were five British Transport Police officers stationed in and around the Manchester Arena. Despite this, none of them were stationed inside the foyer of the arena in the 30 minutes before the end of the concert.

Starting point is 00:49:01 Coincidence? Perhaps. But it might have something to do with the fact that they were stretched rather thin. Not just by police cutbacks, but because two officers, Jessica Bullough and Mark Renshaw, spent two hours of their time on duty that night making a ten mile round

Starting point is 00:49:17 trip to pick up kebabs. Honestly, I just don't know what they spent two hours going to get fucking kebabs. When the terrorism threat level in the UK at the time was severe. And there were 14,000 people gathered in an arena. Okay. Fucking hell. And during this time, Salman Abidi, who'd realised that he'd turned up early,

Starting point is 00:49:42 walked back to the train station and then returned to the foyer just to pass some time. And all of this went unnoticed by the police. After Abidi returned to the arena, he waited there for an hour for the concert to end. This is the thing that like we really have to like stress is that he doesn't just sort of like run in out of nowhere and blow himself up. He's there hanging around with this giant backpack on for hours. So as parents started to gather in the foyer, waiting to pick up their kids, several parents noticed Salman and thought that he looked suspicious because he fucking did. And at 10.15pm, he was actually reported to a security guard by a concerned parent.

Starting point is 00:50:25 That guard radioed for help, but couldn't get through to anyone. Another security guard, who also thought that Abidi looked shifty, then checked him out. But despite this, the guard did not report it to the police or other security guards. He would go on to say that he didn't because he was nervous of being labelled a racist. So at 10.30pm on the 22nd of March 2017, the avoidable seemingly became unavoidable. Despite having returned from fighting alongside radical Islamists in Libya twice, being reported by students, councillors and even members of his own mosque and setting off two MI5 tripwires, Abidi managed to get to that point,

Starting point is 00:51:11 standing in the foyer of the Manchester Arena with a backpack full of explosives. I almost have to think that he could probably hardly have believed it. Like, what the fuck? At 10.31, as people began to stream out of the concert, those who'd reported Abidi had their worst fears recognised. Abidi detonated his homemade bomb, killing himself instantly

Starting point is 00:51:35 and eventually taking 22 other people with him. And those 22 people were Georgina Callender, 18, Sappy Rose Rousseau, 8, John Atkinson, 28, Megan Hurley, 15, And those 22 people were... Martin Hett, 29, Kelly Brewster, 32, Jane Tweddle, 51, Nell Jones, 14, Michelle Kiss, 45, Sorrel Lajowski, 14, Liam Currie, 19, Chloe Rutherford, 17, Elaine McIver, 43, Wendy Fowle, 50, Ailey McLeod, 14, Courtney Boyle, 19, and Philip Tron, who was 32. Now you might think that as soon as the explosion settled, the police officers who were stationed at Manchester Arena

Starting point is 00:52:31 would be the ones rushing onto the scene. But as a stampede of terrified fans began to thunder towards the exit, only one man ran the other way. He was Paul Reid. And he wasn't a police officer. He wasn't even a security worker. Paul Reed was a bloke who sold merch. He still had a fistful of posters in his hand when he ran into the foyer of the Manchester Arena. And he told the BBC that he still remembered what he

Starting point is 00:52:58 saw like it was yesterday. Dust, smoke, metal and bodies everywhere. As one of the first on the scene, and with only a small amount of first aid training, Paul just tried his best to help as many people as possible. Quickly he came across eight-year-old Safi Rose Rousseau. When Paul found Safi, she was lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, drifting in and out of consciousness. Paul got down on the floor, asked her her name, and held her in his arms, waiting for help to arrive. Paul told eight-year-old Safi that they'd find her mum really soon, and that help was on its way. He told the BBC that

Starting point is 00:53:37 he was expecting the emergency services to come rushing in any second. But as if anything could make this story any worse, that help never arrived. We're going to leave Paul and Safi waiting in the foyer of the Manchester Arena for help to arrive and talk about why it never really came. We already know that when Salman Abidi detonated his bomb, there were five British transport officers in and around the area. When they heard the bomb detonate, they immediately radioed for help and alerted their superiors to the incident. That's all good stuff.

Starting point is 00:54:10 But from this moment onwards, the chain of command didn't go as seamlessly as you would hope it did. The first breakdown of communication came when the incident was wrongly labelled as a potential shooting. The second fuck-up came shortly after the first, when Greater Manchester Police called Operation Plato the code word or signal for an active terrorist attack. Operation Plato was designed to trigger a specific response from Manchester's emergency services, but that

Starting point is 00:54:38 response didn't start, because nobody told the ambulance service or the fire brigade that it had been caught. On top of this, Greater Manchester Police's second-in-command, Superintendent Arif Nawaz, didn't actually know what Operation Plato was. Somebody help. What the fuck is going on? They were just doing a training session. So all of this meant that armed police formed a blockade around Manchester Arena while they assessed the threat of A, a potential armed suspect and B, a second explosion. During this time, they didn't let any of the other emergency services on the scene to go into the arena. And okay, I can understand this to some minor, minor extent

Starting point is 00:55:26 because we often see with terror attacks, what they will do is have a first detonation or a first attack and then when emergency responders rush in, they do a second attack on those people. But this went on for hours. We don't know how the threat of a shooter slash second bomb was assessed, but we do know that it took fucking ages. In theory, a group of armed officers should have rushed into the foyer shortly after Paul Reed did.

Starting point is 00:55:54 These officers should then have cleared through the area, looking for any potential suspects or second bombs. And then they should have escorted the ambulance and fire service into the foyer so they could administer medical assistance. That didn't happen. For 29 minutes, the only people inside the blast zone were some of the police officers who'd been on duty in the arena, one paramedic who'd managed to slip through the armed blockade by accident,

Starting point is 00:56:19 and Paul Reid. The ambulance service waited on the other side of the blockade, and the fire brigade waited at an assembly point two miles from the Manchester Arena. Inside the blast zone, Paul sat on the floor with eight-year-old Safi still in his arms for what felt like an eternity. After a while, one of the police officers

Starting point is 00:56:39 who were inside the arena came over to Paul and told him that Safi had to go or risk dying in the foyer. But with no stretchers, Paul and the officer had no choice but to use a piece of plastic boarding to try and carry the little girl out of the foyer. Paul told the BBC how the blood made the makeshift stretcher too slippery and how he had to pull a piece of plastic sheeting out from underneath another victim to get Safi to the police officer's car. When they got to the car, their stretcher wouldn't fit, so they waved down an ambulance

Starting point is 00:57:10 and finally rushed little Safi to A&E. Paul Reid rushed back up the stairs for the second time, back into the foyer and straight over to another man, Paul Price. Price had been hit in the stomach by shrapnel from the bomb and was bleeding badly. Reid offered to take over, applying pressure to Price's wounds from one of the few paramedics who had now made their way into the foyer after an agonising 29 minutes. Again, Reid waited for help to arrive. He sat on the floor of the foyer, again in a pool of blood, with one hand applying pressure to Paul Price's stomach and with the other holding Price's hand. Eventually, Paul Price was hauled out on yet another makeshift stretcher.

Starting point is 00:57:49 It took over four hours to get every victim out of the Manchester arena, and Paul Reid, who'd just turned up to sell posters, didn't get home until four o'clock in the morning. Eight-year-old Safi did make it to A&E, but not soon enough. She died later of her injuries. Paul Price spent eight months in a coma and woke up to find that his partner Elaine, who'd been waiting with him for their daughter Gabrielle, hadn't survived the blast.

Starting point is 00:58:16 Leah Vaughan, one of the only paramedics who was sent into the blast zone, retired shortly after that night and now suffers from PTSD. And there's just so many stories like that. I think some of the worst stuff that I remember that just like really, really was so unbearable was like because it was at the end and a lot of the people who were there were obviously children or like, you know, like teenagers.

Starting point is 00:58:39 Parents had come to pick their kids up and so many of the parents were the ones who got blown up. So these kids just went to a concert one night and then the next day they don't have a mum or a dad. It's fucking like just unbearable. So Dale Sexton,

Starting point is 00:58:55 who was in charge of the police response on the night of the bombing, received a huge amount of criticism for saying that their response was quote, almost faultless. Sexton went on to say that he had withheld information from the emergency services on the night of the attack

Starting point is 00:59:12 in order to save lives. He said that if he had been fully truthful on the night of the attack the area would have been declared a hot zone and it would have taken even longer for the victims to get help. I don't know if all of that's true, but it seems very bizarre to me that when there's a terror attack, you wouldn't tell emergency services that there's been a terror attack. Coming back briefly to our piece-of-ship bomber, Salman Abidi died instantly and never saw the consequences of his actions,

Starting point is 00:59:41 because he's a fucking coward. And Hashim Abidi, his brother, was arrested in Libya and held captive for two years until he was extradited to stand trial in 2019. The judge, Justice Jeremy Baker, was unable to hand Hashim Abidi a whole of life sentence for his part in constructing the bomb because he was 20 years old when he did it. And the minimum age for a whole of life sentence in the UK is 21. This entire case is a case of, like, everything by a fraction of a whisker. Yeah, yeah, like literally by a breath.

Starting point is 01:00:14 So what the judge did instead was he gave Hashem Abidi a life sentence with a minimum term of 55 years, which is the longest minimum term in British legal history. Fucking good. Salman's older brother, Ismail, returned to Libya soon after the attack. Neither he or his father, Ramadan, have ever been charged in connection to the bombing. Although MI5 have stated that they believe Ramadan was heavily involved in Salman's radicalisation, no fucking duh, he took him to Libya. Yeah, as a 17-year-old. Yeah. But Ramadan

Starting point is 01:00:47 and Ismail both say that they had no prior knowledge of the attack. So why did you take him back to Libya and take his passport away? Yeah, why were you ringing your parents? Because you were so worried. Yeah. Less than a month after the attack, Ariana Grande hosted the One Love Manchester Benefit concert, in which huge artists came from all over the world to help raise tens of millions of pounds for the victims of the bombings and their families. I remember watching an interview with Ariana Grande after it happened and she was like, I really considered just not being a singer anymore.

Starting point is 01:01:19 I'm not saying obviously what she should do or shouldn't do, but like how you ever come back from that, I don't know. I don't think I would be able to ever get over that. One last thing before we send you on your merry way. We should try and answer the question that we've been working up to all the way through this episode. Did Salman Abidi slip through the net because the net wasn't good enough? Or did he just get lucky every step of the way?

Starting point is 01:01:42 It's a really tough one because the families of the victims and a lot of people involved with this rightly so are furious because of the multiple failings that they believe occurred around this case, not only from Salman Abidi slipping through the net multiple times, but on the night of the attack itself. And I 100% agree with them. There were so many opportunities to stop this person. And I think that's the challenge because with Salman Abidi, he slips through the net so many times that it looks like the net isn't good enough. But we also have to say that the number of terror attacks that must be stopped in London particularly or in any of the major cities in Europe particularly every single day, I think if we knew it, none of us would ever leave the house.

Starting point is 01:02:28 So I think obviously, MI5, MI6 don't tell us how many they stop, how many terror plots they foil. Oh, absolutely. I think it's, I did read a statistic, which obviously, like, you can never know how doctored the information MI5 or MI6 is putting out. But I did read an article that was like, it's every five minutes. Oh, I completely believe that. Absolutely. So I think that it's obviously the ones that fall through the net and destroy lives that we know about. So I also appreciate how difficult it must be in those cases, especially, and we've talked about this before on the show, because there's obviously been that evolution of terrorism from a decade ago where it was much more like directly funded by terror cells and terrorist training camps and people here were

Starting point is 01:03:11 like going off to training camps in pakistan or whatever to learn how to become terrorists and then they were coming back as a cell and living in a house together and building bombs they were easier to spot arguably than where we are now which is this idea of the lone attacker the man with a van the man with a knife the man with a gun or the man with a bomb just taking it upon himself the self-radicalization and that kind of one-off attacker that must be much much harder to police and to catch the problem here and why I think I can't make that argument with how Simon Abidi was missed is because there were so many red flags. He wasn't a man who was going about living his life in a normal way and had these radical thoughts underneath the surface. He was saying these

Starting point is 01:03:57 things vocally. His parents and him were on social media posting things like this. And he flew to the Middle East and fought alongside a terror group multiple times. So the fact that he slipped through the net to me feels inexcusable. Yeah, and I think, you know, the net not being good enough or maybe him just being lucky are the same thing. I think at the end of the day,

Starting point is 01:04:19 it all comes down to like, yes, he was lucky. But I think you could argue the same thing with any terror attack like a lot of things have to go right for them to happen absolutely so no the net isn't good enough because luck shouldn't matter that's the thing I think it's hard because like we said it is an incredibly difficult job to do the volume of data that must be being processed on these kind of things of course must be beyond my ability to even comprehend but with this case the fact that he should have tripped up the wire so many times is shocking how this was allowed to happen so yeah that is the case of the manchester

Starting point is 01:04:58 arena bombings and salmon abidi and then yeah we decided to do it now because like we said at the start, the fifth anniversary of this horrendous attack was Sunday just gone. So yeah, really, really rough times. But hopefully you all learned something. Yeah, I hope you learned something. Go and listen to us on Conflict of Interest. Go over to patreon.com forward slash red handed for some other stuff over there. You can also check out our spotify exclusive show on cults which is called sinister societies and you can also do whatever you want because i'm not the boss of you all of those things are true we will see you if you are a patron immediately after this for under the duvet and if you're not we'll see you next week bye

Starting point is 01:05:39 goodbye Bye. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.

Starting point is 01:06:49 But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti.

Starting point is 01:07:35 It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life life i still haven't found him this is a story that i came across purely by chance but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where i've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health this is season two of finding and this time if all goes to plan we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

RedHanded - Episode 247 – The 2017 Manchester Bombing

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