Salman Abedi likely part of a network, Manchester police say

The father of the man identified as the Manchester Arena suicide bomber denies his son was linked to militants, but the chief constable of the city's police force said it was "very clear this is a network we are investigating."

Ian Hopkins of the Greater Manchester Police also did not correct or object to a question from a reporter on whether "the bomb factory" had been found, saying that extensive searches were ongoing.

The searches in the wake of a bombing Monday at the end of an Ariana Grande pop concert included a controlled explosion at a building in the centre of Manchester, Hopkins said.

Ramadan Abedi, the father of Salman Abedi, told The Associated Press by telephone from Libya shortly before being detained there that his son sounded "normal" when the pair spoke five days ago.

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He said Salman was planning to head from Saudi Arabia to Libya to spend the holy month of Ramadan with family.

"We don't believe in killing innocents," he told the AP. "This is not us."

His comments follow an NBC News report on Tuesday, citing anonymous U.S. intelligence sources, that family members had previously expressed concern to British authorities about Salman Abedi's radicalization.

Abedi said that his son visited Libya a month-and-a-half ago and confirmed his other son, Ismail, has been arrested in the current investigation.

The elder Abedi fled Tripoli in 1993 after Moammar Gadhafi's security authorities issued an arrest warrant and eventually sought political asylum in Britain. He has since returned to Libya.

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Not long after he spoke, a spokesperson for Libya's anti-terror force said the elder Abedi and another of his sons, Hashim, had been detained as part of the widening investigation.

The Abedi men were known to have attended the Didsbury mosque in Manchester.

Representatives from the mosque paid tribute to the victims of what they called an "atrocity" with a minute of silence Wednesday, but strenuously denied some media reports that Salman Abedin had ever worked at the mosque.

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A friend of Salman Abedi also told the London Times the suspect had travelled to Libya in the past month. His possible associations with militant groups there are unclear, although ISIS has claimed responsibility for Monday's deadly attack.

Many British Libyans travelled to the North African country to join the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a group emboldened in the wake of the chaos that ensued after the dictator Gadhafi was deposed in 2011. The LIFG has existed in some form since the 1990s, and was designated a terrorist group by the U.K. in 2004.

Who was the bombmaker?

Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants have long had a presence at the border between Libya and Algeria.

British Home Secretary AmberRuddsaid earlier in the day that Salman Abedi, born in England, was known "up to a point" to the British intelligence services and police. She saidthe investigation is continuing and declinedto provide further details.

Unlike other recent terror attacks in Europe, in which forged identification has been used to throw off investigators, Abedi's own ID was said to have been located near the scene of Monday's bombing, which killed 22 and is the deadliest in Britain since the 2005 transit attacks that left 52 dead.

The most recent attacks in Britain since those 7/7 bombings in 2005 have not been seen as sophisticated or have been perpetrated by so-called lone wolfs, including a vehicle attack in March near the Houses of Parliament. Fears have been raised ahead of the June 8 election, with Prime Minister Theresa May announcing the threat level has been elevated to "critical," the highest level.

The central question is how Abedi came into possession of the deadly explosive device. The options include that he built it alone, with accomplices, or was a deadly messenger for its makers.

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British police have been tight-lipped, and have not taken the step of reassuring the public that a suspected bombmaker is among the people they currently have in custody.

Abedi is confirmed to have attended Burnage Academy for Boys secondary school and, briefly, the University of Salford, both in Manchester. There have been reports that his immediate route to the Manchester Arena involved a train ride from London.

If the seeds of the plot emanated from Libya, it would not be the first such case to leave Britons victimized.

Three Tunisians who launched attacks in tourist-heavy areas in their own home country in 2015, killing 31 from Britain and 62 overall, were believed to have been radicalized in militant camps in Libya.

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