Manchester Bomber Met With ISIS Unit in Libya, Officials Say
On visits to Tripoli as well as to the coastal Libyan town of Sabratha, Mr. Abedi met with operatives of the Katibat al-Battar al-Libi, a core Islamic State unit
that was headquartered in Syria before some of its members dispersed to Libya.
If the content of the call was sensitive, Mr. Abedi used phones
that were disposable, or dispatches were sent from Libya by his contacts to his "friend" — living in Germany or Belgium — who then sent it to Mr. Abedi in Britain, according to the former intelligence chief.
An investigation later indicated that the perpetrators in the two attacks in Tunisia had trained in the same Islamic State camp in Libya in Sabratha, the same city
that Mr. Abedi is believed to have visited to meet members of the Battar brigade.
Mr. Abedi’s contacts with the Battar brigade members in Libya — though not the details of the methods used to communicate or the specific
locations — were confirmed by a senior United States intelligence official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That escalation continued until two days before President Barack Obama left office, specifically because officials feared
that the Islamic State was moving its infrastructure for external operations to Libya, said a former senior United States counterterrorism official, who has left government and spoke on the condition of anonymity to not violate the individual’s company privacy policy.
Mr. Colquhoun said that When I looked at the Islamic State, the same thing was happening,
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and ERIC SCHMITTJUNE 3, 2017
The bomber who killed 22 people at a pop concert in Manchester, England, last month had met in Libya with members of an Islamic
State unit linked to the November 2015 Paris terrorist attack, according to current and retired intelligence officials.