The sister of Salman abedi, the 22-year-old suicide bomber, has shared one possible reason why her brother detonated a bomb inside the Manchester Arena on Monday. Jomana, who was surprised by what Salman did, believes the air strike by the U.S. in early April triggered Salman to seek revenge.
She told The Wall Street Journal that Salman saw images of dead Muslim children after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered an air strike. American jets struck a Syrian military base as a response to the Syrian government’s use of sarin gas in Idlib province that killed 73 people.
Using kids to justify air strike and Manchester carnage
Like Salman, Trump also was moved by the images of dead Syrian civilians, especially babies, which made him change his policy on Syria and he ordered the air strike that fired 59 Tomahawk missiles from two warships in the Mediterranean Sea. Jomana said that Salman saw the missiles from U.S. aircraft drop on Syrian children. The air strike included four children among its collateral damage, The Telegraph reported. Her justification of her brother’s act did not sit well with Mark Session, a Manchester resident.
Session pointed out that seeing the dead Syrian children does not justify killing other people. He acknowledged that it is heartbreaking if children lose their lives, but Session said that no children who died after the U.S.
air strike were targeted purposely. In contrast, Salman deliberately targeted young concertgoers at Ariana Grande’s Manchester show. Session said it is sick to justify the bombing of the Manchester Arena in such a way.
Abedi family under scrutiny
All eyes are now on the Abedi family after the Monday explosion that killed 22 people and injured 50 more.
Salman’s younger brother, Hashim, and father Ramada are detained in Tripoli, while an older brother, Ismail, was also arrested in a Manchester suburb. The Abedi family, with four children in tow, fled to the UK to escape the hard life in Libya under the iron fist rule of then dictator Moammar Khadafy. Salman was born to Ramadan and wife Samia Tabbal in 1994 in Manchester, a year after Ismail was born in 1993.
The couple is believed to have returned to Libya in 2011 after Khadafy was overthrown and killed. Jomana, based on her Facebook profile, lives in Manchester. According to a Libyan security source, Salman called Hashim in Tripoli and told his younger brother – who knew of Salman’s bombing plans – to ask Samia to call him in Manchester. Samia, 50, is a nuclear science engineer who graduated top of her class from Tripoli University. But The Telegraph report said Samia managed to call Salman as he requested. But the British daily quoted a family friend of the Abedis as saying the parents were very shocked by what their third child did.