Police officers stand on duty on Dorset Avenue in Moss Side following a raid on a residential property as investigations continue into the terror attack at the Manchester Arena. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
Police officers stand on duty on Dorset Avenue in Moss Side following a raid on a residential property as investigations continue into the terror attack at the Manchester Arena. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
Moss Side residents have described a dramatic raid overnight in which as many as three men were seen being taken away by armed police officers. Up to 30 officers, including those carrying arms, swooped on the red-brick terraced property on a leafy street at 1.50am on Friday.
Neighbours described shouting as unmarked and marked cars filled the cul-de-sac. One resident, who asked not to be named, said a man in an ankle-length robe was taken out of the property and told to lie down in the street. Another man was witnessed being dragged down the stairs face first and out into the street.
Two men remain in the property. They were unable to explain what had happened and why, when the Guardian was shown round the house. Neither of the men spoke much English but one of them welcomed the Guardian into the property. The other man was sleeping under a rug in an empty ground-floor room.
Upstairs, there were two bare bedrooms with little furniture. The tenant, who said he was from Kuwait and did not appear to know why police had searched the property, pointed to where officers had searched the attic. There was no police presence at the house in the form of officers or marked vehicles.
“I heard shouting at 1.50am exactly,” a neighbour said. “There were loads of armed police, I wouldn’t like to say how many. You could see the laser dots from their guns on the building.”
The neighbour said three men were taken away by police officers, including one in Islamic dress and another in western clothing. “I was so frightened, it was so loud,” the resident said.
The resident said the tenants in the house had been reported for noise and disruption in the past. “We’ve always had difficulties,” the resident said. “There’s always someone coming and going at all hours. There can sometimes be as many as 10 men in there.”
The neighbour said one of the longest-standing tenants had not been seen for some time but was seen “for the first time in a while” on Monday.
Greater Manchester police said on Friday they had made an arrest in Moss Side. Another property – a barbershop less than half a mile away – is also being searched.
A tenant, with limited English, has shown me round the property and pointed to where officers searched the attic. pic.twitter.com/TuBxwlxDUv
The broadcaster and newspaper columnist Katie Hopkins is to leave LBC Radio after she became the subject of a police review over comments she made on Twitter in the wake of the Manchester attack.
Hopkins, who is also employed by Mail Online, was reported to the Metropolitan police for a tweet in which she called for a “final solution” as part of a longer anti-Muslim tirade.
The columnist quickly deleted the tweet and posted an edited version after receiving widespread condemnation for repeating the Nazi term for the Holocaust.
In a tweet, LBC announced that it and Hopkins have agreed she will leave the station immediately.
LBC and Katie Hopkins have agreed that Katie will leave LBC effective immediately.
For the first time, Manchester police have given the ages of all 10 people they have arrested in connection with the attack. All were arrested on suspicion of offences contrary to the Terrorism Act. Two of those arrested, a 34-year-old woman and 16-year-old boy have since been released without charge. The ages of those still being held range from 18 to 38.
Eight were arrested in Greater Manchester, one in Wigan and one in Nuneaton.
Age range of those arrested in Manchester arena terror inquiry 16-38, police say. 16-year-old boy released without charge. pic.twitter.com/83XF0ArRYh
Armoured police vehicles to be deployed at Wembley
Armoured police vehicles will be deployed at this Saturday’s FA Cup final at Wembley, the Metropolitan police have announced.
In a statement, Ch Supt Jon Williams, who is in charge of public order policing in the MPS, said: “We are working closely with both the Football Association and Wembley to ensure this weekend’s iconic football matches pass off without incident. Together we have a long history of delivering safe and secure major sporting events.
“The focus is the safety and security of fans. Anyone coming to the FA Cup final or the other play-off matches over the weekend will see an increase in police numbers in and around the stadium. This will include extra armed officers on foot patrol around the environs of the stadium, and the deployment of police armoured vehicles to support road closures.”
Armed officers will also be deployed for the rugby final at Twickenham, he said.
Labour is reported to have suspended the vice-chairman of a Surrey branch of the party after he suggested the government could have been behind the Manchester bombing.
Daniel Ewen, who is the party’s vice-chair in Esher and Walton, wrote on Facebook: “I would not put it past our establishment, our right wing government or Theresa May to blow up their own people in order to continue to secure power for themselves.”
Police have raided a pizza shop in St Helens, Merseyside, in connection with the Manchester bombing. The property, Lorenzo Pizza in Corporation Street, was being rented out to “two Muslim lads from Manchester”, according to its owners.
Susan Chowdhury, who owns the property with her husband Steve, said she was “mortified” that the tenants may have been involved in the fatal attack. “They gave up the shop two weeks ago, they said they couldn’t afford it. They had the shop from July last year. The ‘leccy was turned off, they’ve not paid any bills. We’re mortified because my husband’s Hindu and I’m Catholic,” said Susan.
Steve Chowdhury said the two men, in their 30s, both had families in Manchester although one of them had separated from his wife last year. He said they travelled 50 minutes from Manchester every night to run the pizza shop from 4.45pm to 11.30pm.
Steve said he had been due to meet one of the tenants at the shop this morning – but then he got a phone call from the police to say it had been raided. “They were brilliant, really nice people, so conscientious and courteous,” he said. “I know the police are involved but I don’t think these lads are involved – it’s hard to believe. I told the police I don’t think they’re involved in it.”
The metal shutters on the shop had been sawn off during the police raid between 4.30am and 7am on Friday. There was little sign inside the shop of a frenetic search, except some police paperwork on the counter offering to pay for any damage.
Susan said she was “mortified” about the raid but reassured that police were investigating any potential links. “It’s a frightening world and when it comes so close to home you just think flipping heck. I think it’s just one that they’re checking out and it’s really good that they are – it makes you feel safe.”
Steve Chowdhury had rented the St Helen's pizza shop out to two men from Manchester, who he says hadn't paid bills and closed two weeks ago pic.twitter.com/dWK5DZAENk
Police in Manchester are “confident of rolling up” the suspected terrorist cell behind the attack, according to security minister Ben Wallace.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of another meeting of the government’s emergency committee Cobra, Wallace said: “I’ve spoken to the police. The police are confident that they are in a position to have a good coverage of what’s happened, and of rolling it up. I can’t say any more about that, that would threaten ongoing operations. It is still very live, it is still very hot. That’s why we have critical as our security state.”
Asked if the police were searching for two more bombs, Wallace said: “We are trying to roll up a network. This is not a lone individual. We have to close down every lead we find. We have to follow it up and make sure we make the arrests and the searches that we need to do.”
He added: “There is a difference between the Westminster attack, which was a single individual ... and this lot. That’s why we are on a heightened state of alert.
He also confirmed there are 500 active counter-terrorist investigations, and that about 3,000 individuals are on a watchlist of terrorists suspects.
“All those people are in the mix and they have to be looked at. And then below the 3,000 is another 12,000 people who have in the past come to our attention and haven’t necessarily shown signs of doing anything at all, or no longer posing a risk.
“All of that is predominately underpinned by intelligence, which as I’m sure you will understand and the courts certainly understand. Unfortunately the hardest part is we’ve got to convert intelligence into evidence if we actually want to deprive people of their liberty or take certain steps.
In Moss Side, the owner of a hardware store, said he had seen Salman Abedi at the neighbouring barbershop, which is currently being searched by police. Byron Gibbs said:
“I recognised him in the photos. He spends time with the people. I’ve seen him walk past the shop window lots of times. He was heading towards the barber’s next door. I was shocked to see his face on television. It’s been a long time since I saw him last.”
The shopkeeper, 79, said no one had been in the barbershop since at least Tuesday and it has since been closed. “That’s very unusual,” Gibbs said. “It’s normally open every day even Sunday.” Gibbs described the owners as Muslim men of Middle Eastern appearance. “Police have said nothing to me about what’s happening next door,” he said.
Shopkeeper, Byron Gibbs, says he had seen Salman Abedi head to neighbouring Barbershop, which is being searched by police. pic.twitter.com/sqBuxmnYNk
Security minister Ben Wallace has strongly rejected the idea of interning thousands of terrorists suspects in the wake of the attack.
Since the blast there have been calls for the internment of about 3,000 people on a terrorist watch list. Those backing the idea include Col Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan; Steve Howe, a widow of one of those killed in the blast; and Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson.
We need a State of Emergency as France has. We need internment of thousands of terror suspects now to protect our children. #Manchester
Wallace said internment would be counter-productive. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he said: “We need to keep our communities on side and if we don’t produce evidence and act within the rule of law and just start rounding people up and put people in internment camps, what we found in Northern Ireland was the community felt they were under persecution and stopped engaging with the police and stopped engaging with the intelligence services and that set us back probably 20 years in counter-terrorism.”
He added: “If we start just scooping people up and putting them away what are their families and other people to think, if it turns out as it was in internment [in Northern Ireland] huge numbers of people had nothing to do with it? That’s the big challenge here: intelligence is not always evidence.”
He said reintroducing internment would be “retrograde step”, adding: “The majority would come from the Muslim communities – that would turn communities against us and our police would not want that. A policeman or policewoman would say that’s a bad idea.”
Police officers are inside a barber shop in Moss Side as part of the investigation into the bombing.
Greater Manchester police confirmed that a man was arrested at a property in Moss Side overnight, while a separate property in the same area of Manchester is being searched. It is unclear if an arrest has been made at the barber shop.
A police cordon has been placed around four properties – a hardware store, pharmacy and cafe, as well as the barber’s. Uniformed officers and a police van are standing guard outside the front and rear of the property.
Police officers are in a Barbers in Moss Side as part of arena bombing investigation, see here where they have broken the shutters open. pic.twitter.com/O6nGyDwrF9
