Manchester bomber: "lone wolf" or "known wolf"?

"We really don't know what his motive was."
"Just a deranged individual who acted alone."
"A lone wolf..."
That's what the authorities told us about Lee Harvey Oswald. Remember? That's what they try to tell us every time a murderer -- terrorist, assassin or otherwise -- does something horrendous, like killing a VIP or maybe just a couple of dozen innocent kids. The reason for downplaying any possible links to a criminal gang or terrorist network is to excuse the "authorities" from their failure to prevent atrocity or take any effective action to obliterate (President Trump's excellent word) the group of malefactors responsible.

No sooner had the dust settled into the pools of blood from the victims of the Manchester massacre than police -- forced by pressure from blogs like WWW to name the attacker -- started saying Salman Abedi, pictured at left, was born in Britain (omitting his Arab ethnicity) and ISIS' claim that he was a jihadi "cannot be verified" (therefore isn't true). What a load.

That whitewash (pun intended) didn't last long. In my third update to yesterday's post, I told you that Inspector Knacker had felt the collar [= "arrested" in Americanese. Ed.] of a 23-year-old -- unidentified, of course -- who is "helping with the investigation", which means being beaten with rubber hoses until he talks.

Catching up with the latest developments this morning, the mojo wire tells us Manchester police have arrested three more men, including Mr Abedi's brother, in connection with the suicide bombing. The arrests had been made in the south of the city, in the same neighbourhood where the 23-year-old was arrested and a number of homes were searched. Why have they arrested these four people? Because... wait for it... "Police are trying to establish if bomber Salman Abedi acted alone or whether there could be a risk of further attacks."

The AP report goes on to say that "British police and intelligence agencies are working to piece together Abedi's allegiances, as the country's law-and-order chief said it's 'likely' he did not act alone." No shit, Sherlock! Then British Home Secretary (responsible for police and security) Amber Rudd dropped the other shoe, admitting that Mr Abedi had been known to security forces "up to a point." For instance, they knew he had made a number of trips to Libya and Syria. Did they have him under observation? Errr, no. Did they investigate his associations and connections? Errr, no. Not until now. Did they do anything to prevent him from exterminating dozens of "infidels"? Supply your own answer.

FOOTNOTE AND WOW!!! Near the beginning of yesterday's post, Ed. queried how the Americans got into this. Turns out the name of the attacker and other "sensitive details" of the investigation into the Manchester massacre were made public not by the UK authorities, but by "American officials". British officials had said that making all their findings public could compromise the ongoing investigation, but they were undermined by their counterparts in the US, who promptly handed over many of the police's findings to American media outlets. See "British officials warn American government to stop leaking details of Manchester terror probe", in The Sun (UK), from which the picture of the Islamic terrorist was scraped.