British police have identified Salman Abedi, 22, as the bomber behind the attack on an Ariana Grande concert Monday in Manchester, England. Abedi died in the bombing, which claimed the lives of at least 22 victims and injured dozens more — many of whom were children.

Law enforcement in the U.K. continued to expand its investigation Wednesday, citing a wider terror network and arresting at least six people in connection with the attack.

"Clearly, this was a pretty sophisticated and powerful bomb," a high-ranking Western government official told NPR, explaining that officers believe Abedi received help with the attack. "Our assessment is he did not have the skills to build such a bomb, and the conclusion is there is a bomb-maker out there."

Greater Manchester Police say Abedi — a British national whose father, Ramadan, comes from Libya — was part of a wider terror network.

His family has come under scrutiny, as well: Libya's RADA counterterrorism force issued a statement on Facebook saying it has arrested and interrogated Abedi's younger brother, Hashim. In the statement, the force says that the 20-year-old engineering student had been planning to launch an attack of his own in Tripoli and that after his arrest Tuesday night, Hashim confessed to ties with the Islamic State and knowledge of his brother's alleged plans for the Manchester attack.

The Associated Press reports the brothers' father, Ramadan Abedi, was also arrested in Libya but did not say why. In an interview with the AP before his arrest, Ramadan Abedi said his 23-year-old son, Ismail, had been arrested Tuesday, as well.

"We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us," Ramadan Abedi told the news service. "We aren't the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Quran, but not that."

Ramadan Abedi fled to the U.K. in the early 1990s to escape the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to The Guardian. The British newspaper reports that in 2001, he returned briefly to the country, where he fought Gadhafi's soldiers as part of the al-Qaida-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting group.

A Libyan neighbor says the elder Abedi returned again to Libya in 2011 after Gadhafi's government fell.

Salman Abedi lived for years with family in a modest red-brick house in the Fallowfield section of Manchester, a middle- to working-class neighborhood. Though his neighbors tell NPR they did not know him well, some of them recall an incident in which a resident complained to police several years ago that members of the Abedi family had shown signs of radicalization.

Police had followed up on the complaint at the time and visited the house.

The senior Western official tells NPR that Salman Abedi had returned from a trip to Libya in the past several days.</s>British police have identified Salman Abedi, 22, as the bomber behind the attack on an Ariana Grande concert Monday in Manchester, England. Abedi died in the bombing, which claimed the lives of at least 22 victims and injured dozens more — many of whom were children.

Law enforcement in the U.K. continued to expand its investigation Wednesday, citing a wider terror network and arresting at least six people in connection with the attack.

"Clearly, this was a pretty sophisticated and powerful bomb," a high-ranking Western government official told NPR, explaining that officers believe Abedi received help with the attack. "Our assessment is he did not have the skills to build such a bomb, and the conclusion is there is a bomb-maker out there."

Greater Manchester Police say Abedi — a British national whose father, Ramadan, comes from Libya — was part of a wider terror network.

His family has come under scrutiny, as well: Libya's RADA counterterrorism force issued a statement on Facebook saying it has arrested and interrogated Abedi's younger brother, Hashim. In the statement, the force says that the 20-year-old engineering student had been planning to launch an attack of his own in Tripoli and that after his arrest Tuesday night, Hashim confessed to ties with the Islamic State and knowledge of his brother's alleged plans for the Manchester attack.

The Associated Press reports the brothers' father, Ramadan Abedi, was also arrested in Libya but did not say why. In an interview with the AP before his arrest, Ramadan Abedi said his 23-year-old son, Ismail, had been arrested Tuesday, as well.

"We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us," Ramadan Abedi told the news service. "We aren't the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Quran, but not that."

Ramadan Abedi fled to the U.K. in the early 1990s to escape the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to The Guardian. The British newspaper reports that in 2001, he returned briefly to the country, where he fought Gadhafi's soldiers as part of the al-Qaida-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting group.

A Libyan neighbor says the elder Abedi returned again to Libya in 2011 after Gadhafi's government fell.

Salman Abedi lived for years with family in a modest red-brick house in the Fallowfield section of Manchester, a middle- to working-class neighborhood. Though his neighbors tell NPR they did not know him well, some of them recall an incident in which a resident complained to police several years ago that members of the Abedi family had shown signs of radicalization.

Police had followed up on the complaint at the time and visited the house.

The senior Western official tells NPR that Salman Abedi had returned from a trip to Libya in the past several days.</s>British police have identified Salman Abedi, 22, as the bomber behind the attack on an Ariana Grande concert Monday in Manchester, England. Abedi died in the bombing, which claimed the lives of at least 22 victims and injured dozens more — many of whom were children.

Law enforcement in the U.K. continued to expand its investigation Wednesday, citing a wider terror network and arresting at least six people in connection with the attack.

"Clearly, this was a pretty sophisticated and powerful bomb," a high-ranking Western government official told NPR, explaining that officers believe Abedi received help with the attack. "Our assessment is he did not have the skills to build such a bomb, and the conclusion is there is a bomb-maker out there."

Greater Manchester Police say Abedi — a British national whose father, Ramadan, comes from Libya — was part of a wider terror network.

His family has come under scrutiny, as well: Libya's RADA counterterrorism force issued a statement on Facebook saying it has arrested and interrogated Abedi's younger brother, Hashim. In the statement, the force says that the 20-year-old engineering student had been planning to launch an attack of his own in Tripoli and that after his arrest Tuesday night, Hashim confessed to ties with the Islamic State and knowledge of his brother's alleged plans for the Manchester attack.

The Associated Press reports the brothers' father, Ramadan Abedi, was also arrested in Libya but did not say why. In an interview with the AP before his arrest, Ramadan Abedi said his 23-year-old son, Ismail, had been arrested Tuesday, as well.

"We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us," Ramadan Abedi told the news service. "We aren't the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Quran, but not that."

Ramadan Abedi fled to the U.K. in the early 1990s to escape the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to The Guardian. The British newspaper reports that in 2001, he returned briefly to the country, where he fought Gadhafi's soldiers as part of the al-Qaida-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting group.

A Libyan neighbor says the elder Abedi returned again to Libya in 2011 after Gadhafi's government fell.

Salman Abedi lived for years with family in a modest red-brick house in the Fallowfield section of Manchester, a middle- to working-class neighborhood. Though his neighbors tell NPR they did not know him well, some of them recall an incident in which a resident complained to police several years ago that members of the Abedi family had shown signs of radicalization.

Police had followed up on the complaint at the time and visited the house.

The senior Western official tells NPR that Salman Abedi had returned from a trip to Libya in the past several days.</s>London and Tripoli: The younger brother of the suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a concert venue in Manchester has been arrested in Tripoli on suspicion of links with Islamic State, a spokesman for a local counter-terrorism force said on Wednesday.

The arrest came as police in the UK arrested five men and said they were investigating a "network", adding further weight to suspicions that 22-year old suicide bomber Salman Abedi did not act alone when he unleashed his deadly violence on concert-goers on Monday night.

The Libyan counter-terrorism force, known as Rada, detained Hashem Abedi, who was born in 1997, on Tuesday evening, spokesman Ahmed Bin Salem told Reuters.

Hashem Abedi had been in touch with his brother, Mr Bin Salem said.

"We have evidence that he is involved in Daesh (Islamic State) with his brother. We have been following him for more than one month and a half," Mr Bin Salem said.

"He was in contact with his brother and he knew about the attack."

Bloomberg reported the father of the two men, Ramadan Abedi, had also been detained in Tripoli. Three vehicles drove up to the Abedi home Wednesday evening and several men wearing uniform, some of them masked, detained the alleged attacker's father and two other unidentified men in the street.

980 troops guarded key landmarks in London, including the recently targeted Palace of Westminster, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace with the UK's terror threat level raised to critical - meaning another attack is expected imminently.

There were no plans to deploy the military across Greater Manchester but soldiers took part in a police raid on a set of five-story flats called Granby House on Granby road, where they carried out a controlled explosion. An eyewitness who did not want to be named told Fairfax Media he saw police kick down the door to the property to gain access.

A source told Reuters investigators were hunting for accomplices who may have helped build the suicide bomb and who could be ready to kill again.

"I think it's very clear that this is a network that we are investigating," said Chief Constable Ian Hopkins from Manchester.

"There's extensive investigations going on," he said and described the inquiries as fast-paced.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd confirmed Salman Abedi was known to the authorities and described the suicide bombing as "more sophisticated than some of the attacks we've seen before." Mrs Rudd hit out at the Americans for leaking Abedi's identity to the US media before police in Britain were ready to confirm their suspect's name.

Hours before he was reportedly detained, Abedi's father told Bloomberg that his son Salman was innocent and had only recently condemned terrorist attacks.

"As we were discussing news of similar attacks earlier, he was always against those attacks, saying there's no religious justification for them," he said from Tripoli, Libya.

"I don't understand how he'd have become involved in an attack that led to the killing of children."

The father confirmed that his son had travelled to Libya to visit his family last week. The French interior minister, citing UK intelligence, claimed there were proven links between Salman Abedi and Islamic State and that he may have also travelled to Syria.

The Abedis were reported to have attended Didsbury Mosque in Manchester.

Fawzi Haffar, from the Manchester Islamic Centre, condemned the attack and said media reports that Salman Abedi worked at the centre were wrong.

"The horrific atrocity that occurred in Manchester on Monday night shocked us all, this act of cowardice has no place in our religion," he said.

He said Muslims had been targeted since Monday's attack and urged victims to report any hate crimes.

The fifth person has been arrested in connection with the attack in the UK was carrying a package and was arrested in the town of Wigan, 27 km to the west of Manchester city centre.

"We have made an arrest in Wigan this afternoon in connection with the investigation into the horrific incident at Manchester Arena," a spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said on Wednesday.

"When arrested, the man was carrying a package which we are currently assessing."

Constable Hopkins confirmed a serving police officer is among the 22 dead. The youngest victim was aged just eight-years old. The number of those injured was raised from 59 to 64. Many are children who were hurt while leaving the Ariana Grande concert.

Police said they had now identified every victim and informed their families, formal identification will take another four or five days. But friends and relatives identified their dead in emotional tributes on social media.

The attack brought to a halt the general election campaign. Both parties said electioneering would resume on Friday.</s>British police have identified Salman Abedi, 22, as the bomber behind the attack on an Ariana Grande concert Monday in Manchester, England. Abedi died in the bombing, which claimed the lives of at least 22 victims and injured dozens more — many of whom were children.

Law enforcement in the U.K. continued to expand its investigation Wednesday, citing a wider terror network and arresting at least six people in connection with the attack.

"Clearly, this was a pretty sophisticated and powerful bomb," a high-ranking Western government official told NPR, explaining that officers believe Abedi received help with the attack. "Our assessment is he did not have the skills to build such a bomb, and the conclusion is there is a bomb-maker out there."

Greater Manchester Police say Abedi — a British national whose father, Ramadan, comes from Libya — was part of a wider terror network.

His family has come under scrutiny, as well: Libya's RADA counterterrorism force issued a statement on Facebook saying it has arrested and interrogated Abedi's younger brother, Hashim. In the statement, the force says that the 20-year-old engineering student had been planning to launch an attack of his own in Tripoli and that after his arrest Tuesday night, Hashim confessed to ties with the Islamic State and knowledge of his brother's alleged plans for the Manchester attack.

The Associated Press reports the brothers' father, Ramadan Abedi, was also arrested in Libya but did not say why. In an interview with the AP before his arrest, Ramadan Abedi said his 23-year-old son, Ismail, had been arrested Tuesday, as well.

"We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us," Ramadan Abedi told the news service. "We aren't the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Quran, but not that."

Ramadan Abedi fled to the U.K. in the early 1990s to escape the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to The Guardian. The British newspaper reports that in 2001, he returned briefly to the country, where he fought Gadhafi's soldiers as part of the al-Qaida-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting group.

A Libyan neighbor says the elder Abedi returned again to Libya in 2011 after Gadhafi's government fell.

Salman Abedi lived for years with family in a modest red-brick house in the Fallowfield section of Manchester, a middle- to working-class neighborhood. Though his neighbors tell NPR they did not know him well, some of them recall an incident in which a resident complained to police several years ago that members of the Abedi family had shown signs of radicalization.

Police had followed up on the complaint at the time and visited the house.

The senior Western official tells NPR that Salman Abedi had returned from a trip to Libya in the past several days.</s>British police have identified Salman Abedi, 22, as the bomber behind the attack on an Ariana Grande concert Monday in Manchester, England. Abedi died in the bombing, which claimed the lives of at least 22 victims and injured dozens more — many of whom were children.

Law enforcement in the U.K. continued to expand its investigation Wednesday, citing a wider terror network and arresting at least six people in connection with the attack.

"Clearly, this was a pretty sophisticated and powerful bomb," a high-ranking Western government official told NPR, explaining that officers believe Abedi received help with the attack. "Our assessment is he did not have the skills to build such a bomb, and the conclusion is there is a bomb-maker out there."

Greater Manchester Police say Abedi — a British national whose father, Ramadan, comes from Libya — was part of a wider terror network.

His family has come under scrutiny, as well: Libya's RADA counterterrorism force issued a statement on Facebook saying it has arrested and interrogated Abedi's younger brother, Hashim. In the statement, the force says that the 20-year-old engineering student had been planning to launch an attack of his own in Tripoli and that after his arrest Tuesday night, Hashim confessed to ties with the Islamic State and knowledge of his brother's alleged plans for the Manchester attack.

The Associated Press reports the brothers' father, Ramadan Abedi, was also arrested in Libya but did not say why. In an interview with the AP before his arrest, Ramadan Abedi said his 23-year-old son, Ismail, had been arrested Tuesday, as well.

"We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us," Ramadan Abedi told the news service. "We aren't the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Quran, but not that."

Ramadan Abedi fled to the U.K. in the early 1990s to escape the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, according to The Guardian. The British newspaper reports that in 2001, he returned briefly to the country, where he fought Gadhafi's soldiers as part of the al-Qaida-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting group.

A Libyan neighbor says the elder Abedi returned again to Libya in 2011 after Gadhafi's government fell.

Salman Abedi lived for years with family in a modest red-brick house in the Fallowfield section of Manchester, a middle- to working-class neighborhood. Though his neighbors tell NPR they did not know him well, some of them recall an incident in which a resident complained to police several years ago that members of the Abedi family had shown signs of radicalization.

Police had followed up on the complaint at the time and visited the house.

The senior Western official tells NPR that Salman Abedi had returned from a trip to Libya in the past several days.</s>The father, and the younger brother of the attacker who killed 22 people in a suicide bombing in Manchester has been arrested in the Libyan capital Tripoli, according to a counter-terrorism force spokesman and a witness.

The counter-terrorism force detained the father, Ramadan Abedi, outside his home in the Tripoli suburb of Ayn Zara on Wednesday afternoon. A witness said he was handcuffed by armed men who drove him away in two unmarked vehicles.

The force, known as Rada, detained the brother Hashem Abedi, who was born in 1997, on Tuesday evening on suspicion of links to Daesh, spokesman Ahmed Bin Salem said. He did not give any details on the reasons why the father was arrested.

But Hashem Abedi had been in touch with attacker Salman Abedi, Bin Salem said, and was suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital.

“We have evidence that he is involved in Daesh (Islamic State) with his brother. We have been following him for more than one month and a half,” Bin Salem said. “He was in contact with his brother and he knew about the attack.”

He said the younger brother had travelled from London to Tripoli on April 16.

Salman Abedi, 22, was born in Britain to Libyan parents. Britain’s interior minister said earlier that he had recently returned from Libya and had likely not acted alone. His father lives in Tripoli.

Officials are examining Abedi’s trips to Libya and possibly Syria as they piece together his allegiances and try to foil any new potential threats. The government said nearly 1,000 soldiers were deployed Wednesday in high-profile sites in London and elsewhere, replacing police, who can work on counter-terrorism duties.

Speaking Wednesday from the Libyan city of Tripoli, the father of the alleged Manchester bomber denied that his son was linked to militants or to the deadly attack. Ramadan Abedi told the AP that when he spoke to his son Salman five days ago, he sounded “normal.”

He said Salman was getting ready to visit Saudi Arabia for a short Umrah pilgrimage, then planned to head to Libya to spend the Islamic holy month of Ramadan with his family.

“We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us,” the elder Abedi told the AP by telephone. “We aren’t the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents. We go to mosques. We recite Quran, but not that.”

He said his son last visited Libya a month-and-a-half ago and never visited Syria.

The senior Abedi fled Tripoli in 1993 after Moammar Gadhafi’s security authorities issued an arrest warrant for him and eventually sought political asylum in Britain. Now he is a manager for the Central Security force in Tripoli.

He denied having ties to any of Libya’s militant groups, including the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, which was linked to al-Qaida.

But former Libyan security official Abdel-Basit Haroun told the AP that the elder Abedi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting group in the 1990s. Although the LIFG disbanded, Haroun says the father now belongs to the Salafi Jihadi movement, the most extreme sect of Salafism from which al-Qaida and Daesh both hail.

The arrests come after British police arrested a man and a woman near Manchester in connection with Monday’s terror attack, bringing the number of people arrested in the probe to six.

“These searches are connected to Monday’s horrific attack on the Manchester Arena, but this is a fast moving investigation and we are keeping an open mind at this stage,” police said in a statement. “A woman has been arrested at an address in connection with the investigation.”

“We have made an arrest in Wigan this afternoon in connection with the investigation into the horrific incident at Manchester Arena,” police said in a statement after they arrested a man.

“When arrested, the man was carrying a package which we are currently assessing.”

Britain raised its threat level from terrorism to “critical” late Tuesday amid concerns that Abedi may have accomplices who are planning another deadly attack.

Police said three suspects were arrested Wednesday in south Manchester. Another suspect was arrested Tuesday and Abedi’s father confirmed to The Associated Press that was Salman’s older brother Ismail.

Heavily armed police raided an apartment building in Manchester on Wednesday afternoon, blasting the door open with a controlled explosion. Neighbor Adam Prince said the raided apartment had been used as an Airbnb.

In Manchester, where residents continued to place floral tributes to the dead and injured, police arrested a man at a house near Abedi’s home.

Omar Alfakhuri, who lives across the street, said he was awakened at 2:30 a.m. by a loud noise and saw police take away the father of the family that lives there in handcuffs. He said the man, in his 40s, is named Adel and has a wife and several children.

“They arrested the father, and I think the rest of the family kind of disappeared,” Khuri said, adding that he knew the man from the neighborhood and the mosque. “In the last 15 years, I haven’t seen him in trouble at all.”

At Manchester’s Didsbury Mosque, where the Abedi family worshipped, authorities condemned the bombing and denied reports that Abedi had worked there. Azhar Mahmoud, who prays at the mosque in south Manchester, said it was “horrible” that the bomber was associated with it.

“Wherever he got that, he didn’t get it from this mosque,” he said.

Mahmoud said the imam regularly preached against radicalization.

“He always tells the youngsters, stay away from it. … I’ve prayed there Fridays, and that’s his message.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May chaired a meeting Wednesday of her emergency security cabinet group to talk about concerns Abedi might have had outside support. France’s interior minister said Abedi is believed to have also traveled to Syria and had “proven” links with Daesh.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Britain’s increased official threat level will remain at “critical” until security services are convinced there is no active plot in place.

She also complained about U.S. officials leaking sensitive information about Abedi to the press, saying that could hinder Britain’s security services and police.

“I have been very clear with our friends that that should not happen again,” she said.

Manchester officials raised to 119 the number of people who sought medical treatment after Monday night’s attack, saying 20 of them had critical injuries.

Jon Rouse of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership said 64 people were still hospitalized, many with serious wounds that will require “very long term care and support.”

Officials said all the dead and wounded had been identified but their names would not be made public for several days until autopsies are completed.

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Also, Like us on facebook</s>An intense confrontation years ago in the suburb where suicide bomber Salman Abedi lived took on added meaning this week for Sandra Locke.

Abedi stepped behind her daughter's car several years ago as she tried to reverse it down the narrow street that separates the terraced houses, Locke said. He refused to move and threatened her daughter with violence, she added.

"He came right up to the car window and said that he was going to do this and do that,” Locke recalled. “She was really frightened."

Abedi's family ties and travels in Libya drew severe scrutiny Wednesday as authorities continued to piece together what led the British-born man to carry out the deadliest terror attack in the United Kingdom in more than a decade.

U.S. Africa Command reported Abedi, 22, spent three weeks in Libya and returned to Manchester within days of Monday’s bombing. The purpose of the trip remains unknown.

Abedi’s father, Ramadan Abedi, and younger brother, Hashem, were taken into custody in Libya on Wednesday. Another brother, Ismail, was taken into police custody in Manchester on Tuesday.

British authorities are investigating whether a terror network helped Abedi carry out the attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena late Monday that killed 22 people and wounded scores.

The Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for the bombing and said Abedi was one of their soldiers. But British authorities said they have yet to determine if the claim is valid and what, if any, assistance the Manchester college student received in constructing the bomb, picking his target and executing the attack.

Neighbors in the down-at-heel suburb where Abedi lived recalled him as a quiet young man who showed no obvious signs of radicalization, but found he could be abrasive at times. He had recently taken to wearing traditional Islamic dress.

"He never said hello, not so much as a good morning or how are you or anything," Locke said.

James Keary, who grew up in the south Manchester area where the Abedis lived, described him as tall and skinny, and the youngest of four children.

"He just looked like a normal lad going about his business, going to the shops, I would pass by him on the street but he never had much to say," Keary said. "He used to fly a flag with Arabic writing on hanging out of the window but there are a lot of different types of people around here so I didn't think much of it. I can't believe he did this."

The red-brick terrace house the Abedi family lived in the Whalley Range suburb of Manchester remained cordoned off by police Wednesday as the investigation continued.

"I would see him in the garden or in the car. He was pretty anti-social," said neighbor Nisa Akhtar.

Akhtar said she heard loud bangs when police raided Abedi's house earlier this week and detained his older brother, Ismail, who has not been charged.

"My first thought was, 'Oh, gosh, this is like in the movies,'" Akhtar said. "It's been difficult to explain to the children."

Mohammad Fadil, a 25-year-old Internet technology consultant of Libyan descent, said he would see Abedi around Manchester but did not know him well. "He was distant, quiet. He acted by himself and represents only himself," he said.

Fadil said he knew Abedi's older brother, Ismail, though, whom he described as "a very normal citizen of this country. He was recently married. He goes on vacations. Completely normal. What his brother did has nothing to do with him and does not reflect the Libyan community."

Fadil said he would often see Ismail at the Didsbury Mosque in Manchester, a meeting point for the city's Arab and North African Muslim population.

"If there are issues in the community, if anybody has seen anything they would have reported it," Fadil said while speaking outside the mosque, referring to concern that not enough is being done to weed out potential Islamic radicals in the United Kingdom.

As Fadil spoke, a car drove by the mosque and a man leaned out the window and shouted: "Shut it down."

"We are not terrorists. We are doctors," Fadil said.

Hamid El-Sayed, who has worked for the United Nations on curbing radicalization and now works at Manchester University, told the BBC that Abedi had a "really bad relationship" with his family.

"Eventually he was doing very bad at his university, at his education, and he didn't complete, and they tried to take him back to Libya several times," El-Sayed said. "He had difficulties adjusting to European lifestyle."

The Abedis emigrated to London from Tripoli in the 1990s after Moammar Gadhafi’s security authorities issued an arrest warrant for them. They eventually sought political asylum in Britain and settled in Manchester’s sizable Libyan community. The elder Abedis later moved back to Libya, where Ramadan Abedi, the father, is now the administrative manager of the Tripoli's Central Security force.

Ramadan Abedi told the Associated Press that his son visited Libya about a month and a half ago, and denied he was linked to militants or responsible for the attack. France’s interior minister Gerard Collomb said British investigators told French officials they suspect Abedi may have also recently traveled to Syria, France’s BFMTV and the New York Times reported.

​Abedi said his son sounded “normal” when he spoke to him five days ago. He confirmed that Ismail, another son living in Manchester, was taken into police custody after the attack.

Late Wednesday, Libyan officials said counter-terrorism officials arrested the bomber's father as well as the younger brother, Hashem Abedi, the Associated Press reports. Hashem was taken into custody on suspicion of links to the Islamic State, while the father was detained to be questioned, officials said.

Abedi said Salman planned to travel to Saudi Arabia and then to Libya to spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with family.

“We don’t believe in killing innocents,” Abedi said before his arrest. “This is not us.”

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook in Washington and Aamer Madhani in Chicago</s>The father and younger brother of the suspect in the suicide bombing that killed 22 people in Manchester, England, have been arrested in Libya, according to multiple reports.

Reuters reports that Ramadan Abedi, the father of suspect Salman Abedi, was detained outside his home in Ayn Zara, a suburb of the Libyan capital city of Tripoli.

Prior to his arrest, Ramadan Abedi had said in an interview with the Associated Press that he didn’t believe his son was involved in the attack.

“We don’t believe in killing innocents,” he told the AP. “This is not us.”

The New York Times reports that the suspect’s younger brother, Hashem Abedi, 20, was detained.

The Times reports that in a Facebook post written in Arabic, the Special Deterrence Forces, a Libyan militia, alleged Hashem Abedi was a member of the Islamic state who had been involved with the Manchester plot.

According to the Facebook post, Hashem Abedi traveled from Britain to Libya on April 16 and had been in daily phone contact with Salman Abedi ever since then. The post also alleged Hashem Abedi was planning an attack in Libya.

The Associated Press reports that neither Ramadan Abedi or Hashem Abedi have been charged.

Meanwhile, Manchester police have said that Salman Abedi was part of a larger terrorist network and that he didn’t act alone. In a news conference, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said that four other people had been arrested in connection with the attack at Manchester Arena.

“It is very clear that it’s a network we’re investigating,” he told reporters. “We are carrying out extensive searches of premises across Manchester.”

Three of the four arrests were made on the south side of Manchester, the area where Abedi lived, according to authorities. Hopkins declined to identify the four people in custody. (Abedi died in the arena explosion.

Hopkins said investigators are conducting multiple raids, including at least one where a controlled explosion was used to help gain access.

“Officers are currently at the scene,” Hopkins said, “but in order to do this safely, we briefly had to close a nearby mainline railway, which has now been reopened. Those extensive searches will now continue.”

Hopkins warned that people in the area will see heightened police presence.

“People will have seen a significant increase in the number of armed officers in Greater Manchester,” he said. “With the threat level [nationwide] being increased to critical, you will be aware that military are supporting policing across the country. We were able to receive additional armed policing support.”

Upcoming Manchester events are expected to proceed as planned, however.

“We are using [the increased police] to help in our efforts to enable the Manchester Games and Manchester 10k to go ahead,” Hopkins said. “We are working with event organizers and Manchester City Council to review and enhance our safety and security.”

Hopkins said that one of the casualties of Monday’s bombing — which killed 22 and injured more than 100 — was a police officer, but he did not identify the victim, citing the family’s wishes.

Among the dead are children, teenagers and parents.</s>The alleged Manchester attacker's father and two brothers have been arrested following the Monday night explosion , authorities said.

Salman Abedi, 22, died in the attack at an Ariana Grande concert in northern England. The bombing left 22 dead and more than 60 injured.

Abedi's 23-year-old brother Ismail was arrested in Manchester on Tuesday. A younger brother, 18-year-old Hashim, was also arrested in Tripoli on Tuesday night, a Libyan government spokesperson told the Associated Press . The anti-terror force that arrested him said in a statement, "The brother was aware of all the details of the terrorist attack." He was reportedly in the process of receiving cash transferred from Salman at the time of his arrest.

The bomber's father, Ramadan Abedi (also known as Abu Ismail), was also detained in Tripoli on Wednesday. Before his arrest, he told reporters his son was innocent.

In addition to the brother in Manchester, British police officers said they'd detained four potential associates of Abedi in the U.K. on Wednesday. "It's very clear this is a network we are investigating," Chief Constable Ian Hopkins told the AP .
The father, Ramadan Abedi, and younger brother, Hashem Abedi, of suspected bomber Salman Abedi are arrested in Tripoli by the Libyan Counter-Terrorism forces.