Five UK terror plots were stopped between Westminster attack and Manchester bombing, security officials reveal
SECURITY officials have confirmed that FIVE terror plots have been thwarted since the Westminster terror attack in March, underlining the threat which Britain is facing each day.
It has also been revealed that since 2013, 18 plots have been prevented by counter terrorism and intelligence agencies in Britain.
A Whitehall source said that MI5 is managing around 500 active investigations, involving some 3,000 subjects of interest at any one time.
One former senior figure said: "Knowing of someone's radical sympathies and knowing they present a real and present danger are very different things.
"So the essence of the security dilemma is triage, how to assess who and when to investigate very deeply given the resources needed for 24/7 surveillance.
"For every suspect that appears to be high priority another has to be pushed down the list.
"So who not to investigate urgently is as important a decision as who might be worth investigating."
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However there remains concern about how Salman Abedi - who was known to authorities - "slipped through the net" before carrying out Monday's terror attack at the Manchester Arena, in which 22 people tragically lost their lives.
The source added Abedi was "one of a larger pool of former subjects of interest whose risk remained subject to review" by the security service and its partners.
The British-born son of Libyan parents, he was banned from a mosque in the city, after criticising an imam for "talking b******" during a sermon criticising the Islamic State terror group.
A number of people who knew him, and even family members, had reportedly warned authorities he was developing radical views - including, the BBC said, that being a suicide bomber was OK - prompting concerns that signs of the threat he posed were missed.
The 22-year-old's father Ramadan and brother Hashim have been detained in Libya and another brother, Ismail, was arrested in Manchester on Tuesday.
In an interview before his arrest Ramadan Abedi rejected claims he was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, but added that he supports the organisation, which is banned in the UK.
In the translated interview, shown on BBC, he said: "I condemn anyone who says I belong to Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
"I commend them but I don't belong to any organisation."
While Abedi was born and raised in Manchester, his parents had arrived in the UK having fled the Gaddafi regime in Libya the early 1990s.
How he went from being a typical Mancunian schoolboy to a mass murderer seemingly linked to IS will be one of the major questions of the investigation.
Protesting his son's innocence with regard to the Manchester Arena explosion, Ramadan Abedi added: "I'm sure that Salman didn't carry out such an act."
The French interior minister said Abedi had "most likely" been in Syria, another claim his father dismissed, saying he had checked his son's passport.
While Mr Abedi said his son had seemed "normal" when he spoke to him five days before the atrocity, Jamal Zubia, a member of the large Libyan community in Manchester, told the Times the parents were so concerned about their son's apparent descent into extremism that they took his passport.
He said: "The father had all the passports with him and was holding them."
But Abedi convinced them to return it, claiming he wanted to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, Mr Zubia said.
It is reported he in fact came back to the UK, via Germany, from Turkey four days before the bombing.
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