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> 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 . </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 brother of Salman Abedi, the suspect accused of carrying out a bombing in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people, allegedly said he knew his brother was going to carry out an attack, but did not know where or when, according to a spokesman for Libya's counterterror forces.

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Abedi, 22, the suspected suicide bomber, died at the scene of Monday night's attack at an Ariana Grande concert.

Authorities found what was described to ABC News as a bomb-making workshop in Abedi's home in Manchester, with enough chemicals to build several additional bombs.

Libyan authorities had been following Hashem Abedi, the suspect's brother who was born 1997, for a month and a half because of suspected links to ISIS, said Ahmed Dagdoug, the spokesman for Libya's counterterror forces. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

The two brothers were close, and Dagdoug said that Salman placed a call to Hashem, as well as their mother, 30 minutes before carrying out the attack.

On Tuesday, that brother was detained in Libya. During interrogation, Hashem Abedi revealed that he knew his brother was going to carry out an attack, but he did not know where or when, Dagdoug said.

Dagdoug said Hashem Abedi also revealed that he knew exactly how the bomb was made, and that he believes that Salman created the device by himself. He said that he provided some assistance to his brother, but added no specific details as to what that was.

Dagdoug said a network was involved in planning the attack.

The brothers came to Libya on April 18 and Salman Abedi departed on May 17, Dagdoug said.

It's not clear at this time if Salman went to Syria, Dagdoug said.

Salman Abedi's father, Ramadan Abedi, was also arrested in Libya.

Ramadan Abedi was interviewed by Reuters from Libya while in detention, and he denied that his son was a follower of ISIS, who claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday.

"Salman doesn't belong to any organization," he told the news agency. "The family is a bit confused because Salman doesn't have this ideology, he doesn't hold these beliefs."

Dagdoug told ABC News that the two brothers do consider themselves to be members of ISIS and said that they had been studying ISIS videos online, including instructional videos that teach the viewer how to make a bomb.

Joe Giddens/PA via AP Photo

Another one of the suspect's brothers, 23-year-old Ismail Abedi, was arrested in Manchester, a security official confirmed to ABC News.

A total of eight men have been taken into custody in the U.K. in connection with the attack. A woman who was arrested earlier was released without charge, police said.

Under British law, a person can be taken into custody in a terrorism investigation and held up to 14 days without being charged.

Chief Constable Ian Hopkins of the Greater Manchester Police said on Wednesday, "This is clearly a network that we are investigating, and extensive activity is taking place across Greater Manchester as we speak."

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday raised the country's threat level to critical -- the highest of the U.K.'s five threat levels -- indicating that another attack may be imminent.

ABC News

The U.K. Metropolitan Police said 1,000 additional armed officers have been freed up to carry out patrols across the U.K.

"The extra officers add to a wider policing plan which sees increased patrolling at crowded places, iconic sites and transport hubs as police and partners do everything they can to protect the public," the police said.

Witness Joseph Harries told ABC News' "Good Morning America" that "people were just trying to get out of the arena as fast as they possibly could after the blast. I was directly in front of the stage at the heart of the arena. I had exactly the same distance to get out of any of the doors."

ABC NEWS

"I had my best friend with me, and I grabbed hold of her wrist and told her never let go of me," he said. "We just ran. We jumped over chairs, railings to get out of the doors. We had to force open doors that wouldn't open because people were trying to get to -- the entire capacity of the 20,000-person arena were trying to get out of one exit.

"It felt like an eternity," Harries added, but it "couldn't have been more than two, three minutes from in our seats to outside of the arena."

Officials said that 119 people went to hospitals after the bombing, 64 of them are being treated and 20 of those are in critical condition.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Saffie Rose Roussos, 8, is the youngest known person who died from the attack. She was separated from her mother and sister, who were among the wounded, police said.

Fifteen-year-old Olivia Campbell was also among those killed, Campbell's mother wrote on Facebook.

Runshaw College in Lancashire confirmed on its Facebook page that 18-year-old student Georgina Bethany Callander died in the attack.

Toby Melville/Reuters

Lisa Lees, a 43-year-old mother and grandmother, was confirmed to be among the dead by her daughter, Lauren Ashleigh Lees.

"My mum was an amazing lady and wife," her daughter said in a statement. "We will pull together as a family and help each other through the darkness."

Another victim was Nell Jones, who was in Year 9 at the Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School & Sixth Form College in Holmes Chapel, England.

"Nell’s family have been searching for her since the incident in the hope that they would find her being cared for in hospital. Unfortunately, the police have now confirmed that Nell died at the scene," the school headmaster, Denis Oliver, said in a statement. "We are all devastated by the loss and as a school community we must now come to terms with what has happened."

A sixth victim was identified as Martyn Hett, according to his employer at Rumpus PR.

“We are all distraught at the tragic loss of our much-loved, larger than life, colourful and charismatic colleague Martyn Hett," Rumpus PR Managing Director Paul Evans said in a statement. "Martyn was an upbeat and positive soul who saw the good, the joy, the fun in everything.

"At work, he was the consummate professional. A master of his subject -- he was a talented writer, creative thinker and social media expert," Evans added. "Martyn loved life and I hope his lasting legacy is that people -- in these dreadful times -- choose to live their lives with joy not hate, just like he did.”

Two more victims were identified as Chloe Rutherford, 17, and Liam Curry, 19. "On the night our daughter Chloe died and our son Liam died, their wings were ready by our hearts were not," the families said in a statement posted on the Greater Manchester Police Twitter account.

A school receptionist, Jane Tweddle, was also killed in the attack. "Jane was a well-loved member of staff and our thoughts are with her friends and family at this terrible time," Jane Bailey, principal of South Shore Academy, said in a statement. "We have received numerous messages of condolences from parents, students, community members and colleagues across Blackpool for which we are very grateful. All of them say the same things about our lovely Jane ... bubbly, kind, welcoming, funny, generous ... the list goes on."

And Allerton High School in Leeds confirmed that student Sorrell Leczkowski was killed, as well. "Sorrell was a delightful member of the school community," read a statement from the school. "She enjoyed her studies, had a lovely group of friends and was a real asset to Allerton High School."

Stephen Lock/i-Images / Polaris

On Tuesday, May said, "We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish but as an opportunity for carnage."

A moment of silence was observed Wednesday before Manchester United's Europa League final soccer game against Ajax Amsterdam. Manchester beat Amsterdam 2-0 to win the Europa League. </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> MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Police scrambled to close down a network around the Manchester suicide bomber with arrests in Britain and Tripoli on Wednesday, as details about the investigation were leaked to U.S. media, infuriating authorities who fear a second attack is imminent.

British-born Salman Abedi, 22, who was known to security services, killed 22 people at a concert venue packed with children on Monday.

Authorities believe he had help in building the bomb, which photographs published by the New York Times showed was sophisticated and powerful, and that his accomplices could be ready to strike again.

Manchester police arrested five men and one woman on Wednesday, bringing the total held for questioning to seven, and searched multiple addresses in northern and central England.

Explosives were found at one site, the Independent reported, citing security service sources.

A source said British investigators were hunting for anyone who may have helped build the suicide bomb.

“I think it’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigating,” police chief Ian Hopkins said outside Manchester police headquarters.

“And as I’ve said, it continues at a pace. There’s extensive investigations going on and activity taking place across Greater Manchester as we speak.”

Abedi, who was born in Manchester in 1994 to Libyan parents, blew himself up on Monday night at the Manchester Arena indoor venue at the end of a concert by U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande attended by thousands of children and teenagers.

Police in Tripoli on Wednesday arrested Abedi’s younger brother and his father, who said he did not expect the attack.

“I spoke to [Salman Abedi] about five days ago ... there was nothing wrong, everything was normal,” Ramadan Abedi told Reuters, moments before he was arrested.

A spokesman for the local counter-terrorism force said his brother Hashem Abedi was arrested on suspicion of links with Islamic State and was suspected of planning to carry out an attack in the Libyan capital.

The first arrest made in Britain on Tuesday was reported by British and U.S. media to be Abedi’s older brother.

Earlier, interior minister Amber Rudd said the bomber had recently returned from Libya. Her French counterpart Gerard Collomb said he had links with Islamic State and had probably visited Syria as well.

U.S. LEAKS

Authorities in Britain have become increasingly angered by U.S. leaks from the investigation, including the bomber’s name on Tuesday and the photos of blood-stained fragments from the bomb on Wednesday.

British police chiefs said the breaches of trust between security service partners were undermining their efforts.

Rudd had earlier scolded U.S. officials for leaking details.

“The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise, so it is irritating if it gets released from other sources, and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again,” she said.

But, hours after the warning, the New York Times published the detailed photographs.

A government source told the Guardian newspaper, “Protests have been lodged at every relevant level between the British authorities and our U.S. counterparts.”

British Prime Minster Theresa May will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, but officials said she would cut short the second leg of her trip to the G7 summit in Italy.

The Manchester bombing has raised concern across Europe.

Cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St. Petersburg, Berlin and London have suffered militant attacks in the last two years.

SOLDIERS ON THE STREETS

The 22 victims in Manchester included an eight-year-old girl, several teenage girls, a 28-year-old man and a Polish couple who had come to collect their daughters.

Britain’s official terror threat level was raised to “critical”, the highest level, late on Tuesday, meaning an attack was expected imminently.

But with just over two weeks to go until a national election, May’s Conservatives and political parties said they would resume campaigning in the coming days.

Messages and floral tributes left for the victims of the attack on Manchester Arena lie around the statue in St Ann's Square in central Manchester, May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Super

The Manchester bombing was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London’s transport network.

Rudd said up to 3,800 soldiers could be deployed on Britain’s streets, taking on guard duties to free up police to focus on patrols and investigation. An initial deployment of 984 had been ordered, first in London and then elsewhere.

Soldiers were seen at the Houses of Parliament, May’s Downing Street residence and at the London police headquarters at New Scotland Yard.

The Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace, a draw for tourists, was canceled because it requires support from police officers, which authorities decided was not a good use of resources given the threat level.

A source close to the bombing investigation told Reuters that the focus was on whether Abedi had received help in putting together the bomb and on where it had been done.

The bomb used in the attack appeared to contain carefully packed shrapnel and have a powerful, high velocity charge, according to leaked photographs from the investigation published by the New York Times.

The BBC reported that security services thought the bomb was too sophisticated for Abedi to have built by himself.

Police arrested three people in South Manchester, one woman in North Manchester, a man in the nearby town of Wigan, and another man in the central English town of Nuneaton.

CANCELED TOUR

Ariana Grande’s representative said on Wednesday she was suspending her tour to assess the situation and to “pay our proper respects to those lost”. The U.S. singer had been scheduled to perform two shows at London’s O2 arena this week.

Chelsea soccer club said it had canceled a victory parade that had been set to take place on Sunday to celebrate its Premier League title.

Several high-profile sporting events are coming up in Britain, including the soccer FA Cup final at London’s Wembley Stadium and the English rugby club competition final at Twickenham on Saturday and the UEFA Champions League final at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on June 3.

Britain also has a national election scheduled for June 8.

All campaigning was suspended after the attack, although major parties said they would resume some activities on Thursday and national-level campaigning on Friday.

The government said a minute’s silence would be held at all official buildings at 1000 GMT (6.00 a.m. ET) on Thursday.

Slideshow (19 Images)

Greater Manchester Police said they were now confident they knew the identity of all the people who lost their lives and had made contact with all the families. They said they would formally name the victims after forensic post-mortems, which would take four or five days.

The bombing also left 64 people wounded, of whom 20 were receiving critical care for highly traumatic injuries to major organs and to limbs, a health official said.

France, which has repeatedly been hit by devastating militant attacks since 2015, extended emergency powers.

(For a graphic showing where the blast hit, click tmsnrt.rs/2rbQAay) </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 suicide bomber who killed 22 people and injured dozens more at the Manchester Arena has been named as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, according to US officials.

Born in Manchester in 1994, the second youngest of four children his parents were Libyan refugees who came to the UK to escape the Gaddafi regime.

His mother, Samia Tabbal, 50, and father, Ramadan Abedi, a security officer, were both born in Libya but appear to have emigrated to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester where they have lived for at least ten years.

After giving birth to two sons, they had son Hashem Abedi, now 20, and daughter Jomana, 18.

Jomana, who has two Facebook profiles, attended Whalley Range High School before apparently working at Didsbury Mosque in 2013.

Although born in Manchester, she states online that she is from Tripoli and has many Libyan connections. Her profile also makes reference to wearing a hijab.

Abedi grew up in the Whalley Range area, just yards from the local girl's high school, which hit the headlines in 2015 when twins and grade A pupils, Zahra and Salma Halane, who were both aspiring medical students, left their homes and moved to Isil controlled Syria.

There were unconfirmed reports in Manchester that the whole family apart from the two elder sons recently returned to Libya. </s> MANCHESTER/LONDON, May 23 (Reuters) - The suspected suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a concert in Manchester, northern England, on Monday has been identified as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, British police said.

Abedi was born in Manchester in 1994 to parents of Libyan birth, U.S. security officials said, citing British intelligence officials.

His parents emigrated from Libya to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester, where they have lived for at least 10 years, the officials said.

Police raided a house in Elsmore Road in Fallowfield earlier on Tuesday.

A 23-year-old man arrested by police in a separate move in south Manchester in connection with the attack on Tuesday was believed to be Abedi's brother, news reports said.

Abedi had a sister named Jomana Abedi, the U.S. security officials said. (Reporting by Reuters correspondents in Manchester, London and Washington; Writing by Paul Sandle; Editing by William Schomberg)
The father, Ramadan Abedi, and younger brother, Hashem Abedi, of suspected bomber Salman Abedi are arrested in Tripoli by the Libyan Counter-Terrorism forces.