Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi was a former ‘subject of interest’ and his attack ‘might have been averted had the cards fallen differently’, an official review has confirmed.
The UK’s security services faced questions after dozens of victims were killed or injured at Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge, and Finsbury Park.
MI5 and police launched independent reviews to examine what was known about the terrorists before they struck, decisions made on intelligence and possible areas for improvement.
The review, published today, discloses that three terrorists involved in four attacks that hit Britain between March and June this year had at some point been on authorities ‘ radar.
Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was flagged up to security services before his attack killed 22 people including children at an Ariana Grande concert
Concert-goers in Manchester are looked after by the police following the May suicide bombing
Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was not under active investigation when he detonated a suicide device at Manchester arena in May.
But David Anderson QC’s review says that MI5 came by unspecified intelligence in the months before the attack which, ‘had its true significance been properly understood’, would have caused an investigation into him to be opened.
The report says: ‘It is unknowable whether such an investigation would have allowed Abedi’s plans to be pre-empted and thwarted. MI5 assesses that it would not.’
Abedi was also identified by a separate ‘data-washing exercise’ as falling within a small number of former subjects of interest who merited further consideration.
However, a meeting scheduled to consider the results of this process had not been held at the time of the bombing, in which 22 people were killed.
An opportunity was also missed to place Abedi on ‘ports action’ after he travelled to Libya in April.
Police take Khalid Masood to the ground after he drove into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge then stabbed a police officer in the grounds of the Houses of Parliament
Three terrorists lie dead in Borough Market after a van and knife attack on London Bridge
Westminster attacker Khalid Masood was known to police and MI5 for association with extremists.
But he was a closed subject of interest at the time of the atrocity in March, and intelligence officers and police had no reason to anticipate his murderous actions, according to the report.
It also reveals how in the days prior to the attack, Masood conducted reconnaissance of Westminster Bridge in person and online, and browsed YouTube for videos relating to terrorism.
Minutes before he struck, the terrorist shared a “Jihad document” with numerous WhatsApp contacts.
Khuram Butt, who led the three-strong gang behind the London Bridge van and knife attack in June, was the principal subject of an MI5 investigation from mid-2015 until the date of the deadly assault.
A van which ploughed into worshippers near a London mosque in an attack which killed one
The report says material relating to Butt received in the two weeks prior to the attack added little to the intelligence picture and did not identify activity that led up to the attack.
Another of the London Bridge gang, Youssef Zaghba, was placed on an EU warning list in March last year but a marker which would have automatically identified him as a national security risk was deleted by Italian authorities in January.
In June 2016, MI5 received an inquiry from Italian authorities about Zaghba but the agency has no record of responding – “noting by way of possible explanation that it arrived in the incorrect mailbox”.
The request was not chased up by Italian officials.
Zaghba, and the third London Bridge attacker Rachid Redouane, were never investigated by MI5.
Police and MI5 have foiled nine plots since the Westminster attack in March, in addition to the terrorist incidents that have occurred.
Westminster, 5 dead: The career criminal Muslim convert who changed after prison stretch
Extremist website: Khalid Masood
Khalid Masood, 52, killed five people and injured nearly 50 when he drove a hired 4×4 along the pavement of Westminster Bridge before stabbing a policeman outside Parliament.
It emerged in the days after the attack that he was known to police but was not linked to extremism or terrorism.
Masood (right) was a low level criminal who racked up a number of convictions while growing up in Kent and Sussex.
But he changed his name from Adrian Ajao to Masood and was rarely seen by his family after a 2003 prison sentence for a violent attack.
Instead he moved into an area of Luton known for its extremism and was alleged listed as a contact for a website which slammed Christians and Jews urged ‘war’ against ‘the enemy of Allah’.
Manchester, 22 dead: Warning signs over suicide bomber who spent time in Libya before attack
Flagged up: Salman Abedi
Salman Abedi killed 22 including children as young as eight when he detonated a suicide bomb at the exit of an Ariana Grande concert in May.
The 22-year-old British-born son of Libyan immigrants to the UK, Abedi (right) was on MI5’s radar after security services were alerted three times to his extremist views.
It has been claimed information passed to an MI5 regional office should have led to him being made a ‘high priority’ and being put under surveillance.
He has travelled to extremism-plagued Libya and Istanbul shortly before the attack and authorities have said he did not act alone.
UK prosecutors are currently trying to negotiate the extradition of his brother Hassem, who was arrested in Libya after the attack having previously been pictured online brandishing a machine gun.
London Bridge, 8 dead: TV jihadi, failed asylum seeker and ‘red flag’ Italian behind van and knife attack
Wanted to fight for ISIS: Khuram Butt
The London Bridge attack in June was carried out by Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba who killed eight and injured around 50 people.
Butt was well-known to security services, with friends having tipped off MI5 about his extremism.
In 2015 he had thought about joining ISIS in Syria before being talked out it and 2016 he appeared in a Channel 4 documentary called The Jihadis Next Door.
Moroccan Redouane had been refused asylum in 2009, when he was using the name Rachid Elkhdar, yet managed to stay in Britain after marrying an Irish woman in Dublin.
He had previously been arrested in Scotland attempting to travel to Northern Ireland by ferry on a fake passport.
Moroccan-born Italian Youssef Zaghba meanwhile to the Italian authorities in March 2016 when he tried to fly from Bologna to Syria via Istanbul.
His name was put on The Schengen Information System – a red flag warning system informing other European nations if criminals are trying to enter their country. Yet British border guards did not stop him entering the UK at least twice.
Failed asylum seeker Rachid Redouane (left) and extremist Youssef Zaghba (right)
Finsbury Park, one dead: Attack suspect ‘motivated by hatred of Muslims’ was seen by police in van
A Londoner leaves flowers at the site where a man was killed and 11 injured
On Monday, 19 June a man in a hired van mounted the pavement outside the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park.
The centre is down the road from the Finsbury Park Mosque, which previously had problems with extremism but has since worked to tackle the issue.
The area was busy with Muslim worshippers attending Ramadan night prayers at the time.
One man, 51-year-old Makram Ali, died from his injuries after the attack and 11 others were injured.
It was claimed after the attack that police had seen the suspect asleep and drunk in the vehicle 24 hours before the attack, but took no action.