Latest news with #suicidebomb
Arab News
6 days ago
- Arab News
Brother of Manchester suicide bomber charged over attack on jail guards
LONDON: A man who helped his brother plot a suicide bomb attack at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in Britain in 2017 was charged on Wednesday with attempting to murder prison guards in the jail where he was being held. Hashem Abedi, the elder brother of Salman Abedi who killed 22 people at the Manchester Arena in northern England, was charged with five offenses following an incident in April this year at HMP Frankland jail when four prison officers were injured, British police said. He is accused of three counts of attempted murder, one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and one count of unauthorized possession of a knife. He is due to appear at London's Westminster Magistrates Court on September 18. Hashem Abedi was jailed for at least 55 years in 2020 after being convicted of helping his brother plan the attack which injured more than 200 and whose victims included seven children. The brothers, born to Libyan parents who emigrated to Britain during the rule of late leader Muammar Qaddafi, had plotted the attack at their home in south Manchester, prosecutors said.
Al Arabiya
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Explosion followed by gunfire at military base in Somali capital
An explosion hit a military base in the Somali capital on Wednesday and was followed by gunfire, a witness said, as the al Qaeda-linked militant al-Shabaab group claimed responsibility for what it described as a suicide bomb attack. It was not immediately clear whether there were casualties from the blast at the Jale Siyad military base in Mogadishu. 'We heard a sudden blast, then gunfire inside the base as we drove past it, we could only see a huge cloud of smoke,' Ahmed Nur, a bus driver, told Reuters. In 2023, in a similar incident, a suicide bomber killed 25 soldiers at the same base. In May, a suicide bomber killed at least 10 people after targeting a queue of young recruits registering at the Damanyo military base, opposite Jale Siyad. Al-Shabaab has waged an insurgency in Somalia since 2007 and made significant advances in the countryside this year. 'A suicide bomber entered the base targeting the Western experts who train soldiers,' the militant group said in a statement, adding there were casualties, without providing any details. Reuters was not able to verify the group's claims. Defense Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi did not immediately respond to calls for comment. A new African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia replaced a larger force at the start of this year, but its funding is uncertain, with the United States opposed to a plan to transition to a UN financing model.
Associated Press
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Funerals held for victims in suicide bomb attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Syria
Funerals were held on Tuesday for victims of a suicide bomb attack on a church in Syria at the weekend that killed at least 25 people. The attack Sunday on the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox church during a Divine Liturgy in Dweil'a, near Damascus, was the first of its kind in Syria in years, and comes as Damascus under its de facto Islamist rule is trying to win the support of minorities.
The National
23-06-2025
- The National
Syria accuses ISIS of suicide attack in Damascus church
At least 22 people have been killed and 63 others wounded in a suicide bomb attack
Daily Mail
21-06-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Toff terrorist could be let out from prison: Parole board is considering release of ex-public schoolboy who plotted suicide bombing on shopping centre
One of Britain's most dangerous terrorists could soon be back on the streets, MailOnline can reveal. Former public schoolboy Andrew Michael, known as Isa Ibrahim after he converted to Islam, was jailed aged 20 when he was found to be plotting a suicide bomb attack on Bristol's Broadmead shopping centre. However, far from having a tough upbringing, the terrorist who idolised Osama Bin Laden was the toff son of Christian church-going parents and lived in a £1million gated mansion in Bristol. His father Dr Nassif Ibrahim was an Egyptian-born NHS consultant pathologist at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol and his elder brother Peter graduated from Jesus College, Oxford, and became a software engineer. But Ibrahim fell under the spell of Muslim radicals such as the 7/7 bombers, Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Muhammad after watching recordings of their speeches on the internet and converted to Islam. He was unknown to police, and cops only arrested him in 2008 'a matter of hours or days' before he was about to blow himself up with a suicide vest created using internet instructions after a tip-off from the local Muslim community. On July 16, 2009, he was convicted at Winchester Crown Court of making an explosive with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury and preparation of terrorist acts. He was sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence with a minimum term of ten years. Only three years ago in 2022, he was denied parole on the basis that he was still a danger to society. The now-36-year-old could soon taste freedom after the Secretary of State for Justice Shabana Mahmood referred Ibrahim's case to the Parole Board, which is considering whether to release him. A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: 'We can confirm the parole review of Isa Ibrahim has been referred to the Parole Board by the Secretary of State for Justice and is following standard processes. 'Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community. 'A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims. 'Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead up to an oral hearing. 'Evidence from witnesses such as probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements may be given at the hearing. 'It is standard for the prisoner and witnesses to be questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more. Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.' 'A decision on Ibrahim's case is expected over coming weeks.' Brought up in a luxury gated mansion in the leafy Bristol suburb of Frenchay, Ibrahim seemed set for a prosperous life. But his unruly behaviour and developing drug habit began to take their toll. By the time he was arrested, Ibrahim was a regular hard-drug user who was expelled from three different private schools and had first experimented with cannabis when he was just 12 years old. Ibrahim was first expelled from £19,065-a-year Colston's School before being thrown out of the £9,885-a-year Queen Elizabeth Hospital school in Bristol aged 12 for smoking cannabis. He moved to writer Auberon Waugh's former school, the £24,141-a-year strict Roman Catholic Downside School in Bath as a boarder, but was expelled for drinking alcohol in the dorm and going missing. He ended up at the £7,500-a-year Bristol Cathedral School, where he passed nine GCSEs with good grades. While a student at the City of Bristol College, he made explosives and a suicide vest in his flat and carried out extensive surveillance at Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol, where he planned to cause the maximum damage by using nails and ball bearings in his bomb. He bought the main components for the suicide bomb from high street shops, including branches of Boots. A bomb disposal expert stands by an area cordoned off for a controlled explosion outside Ibrahim's home in 2008 Thirty of Ibrahim's neighbours were evacuated and a controlled explosion was carried out following the raid at 2am on April 18, 2008 Ibrahim was only caught after members of the Al-Baseera mosque in Bristol saw injuries he suffered while testing the explosive and, concerned about his extreme views and what he may be planning, told police that a white Muslim convert was acting suspiciously. It is believed to have been the first time that the Muslim community had played a central role in bringing a potential terrorist bomber to justice. When police entered his flat in Comb Paddock, Bristol, police found between 125 and 245g of the unstable explosive Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine, also known as HMTD, the same substance used in the July 7, 2005 London bombings. He had stored it in a McVitie's Family Circle biscuit tin in Ibrahim's fridge. There was so much explosive powder in his flat that the kitchen floor crackled under their feet. Ibrahim had also made an electrical circuit capable of detonating the explosive at short range. Police also found a half-made suicide vest and films of Ibrahim testing the explosives on the floor of his flat. Ibrahim made the HMTD and his suicide vest entirely through instructions from the internet. Soldiers from the Royal Logistic Corps also had to carry out controlled explosions at his home. There was also a large amount of radical literature in the flat and when he was arrested the book Milestones by Sayyid Qutb was in his rucksack. The book advocates jihad and radical Islam. Detective Chief Inspector Matt Iddon said: 'It soon became very, very clear that his kitchen had become an explosive laboratory.' DCI Iddon said Ibrahim had planned to set his suicide vest off in a crowded area of the shopping centre. He said: 'He identified that the food court was a dense area. It's full of families – husband, wives, children, groups of young friends – relaxing and enjoying the day. 'He intended to blow himself up there.' He added: 'He was not on any security services radar. He was completely unknown.' When he was arrested, Ibrahim told officers: 'My mum's going to kill me. Am I going to be on the news?' His father Nassif, mother Victoria and brother Peter were in court every day for the trial 16 years ago. At Ibrahim's trial, where he denied the charges, he said he had trouble interacting and making friends, and admitted even as an adult he talked to teddy bears. Even as he was detained in Belmarsh prison, he thought it would 'give him status' to be in the same jail as the likes of hate cleric Abu Hamza. He claimed he had no intent to harm but just wanted to set the vest off and film. Trial judge Judge Mr Justice Butterfield told the terrorist: 'You were, in my judgment, a lonely and angry young person at the time of these events, with a craving for attention. 'You are a dangerous young man, well capable of acting on the views you held in the spring of 2008.' His mother fled the court in tears as the sentence was passed and since he was jailed his family have regularly visited him in prison.
