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tv   BBC News  BBC News  March 26, 2023 11:30pm-12:00am BST

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hello. we started with the news that head coach antonio has left tottenham hotspur by mutual consent. the italianjoint tottenham hotspur by mutual consent. the italian joint spurs tottenham hotspur by mutual consent. the italianjoint spurs in november leading them to for the the champions league another season is coming under criticism and champions league as well as the style of play. tottenham will not be looking for their fourth tottenham will not be looking for theirfourth manager in tottenham will not be looking for their fourth manager in four years. and would have maintained their winning start in qualifying and victory over ukraine in a hurricane on the scoresheet is skerritt southgate site the impressive
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victory in securing maximum points into more testing qualifiers. often, sport can provide but on the rare occasion that it unifies but memories are created which can last a lifetime. emotions are high on and off the pitch is in good welcome ukraine, opposing teams the shared goal. gordon brewed for harry kane, newly crowned his countries all—time leading male goal—scorer and it was no surprise that it the england captain on the scoring from close range taking his international tally to 55. after assisting with the first arsenal score at the second themselves. an effort better with each replay. the second half would prove less eventful although in injury time, maguire should have added a third but still, second in
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weak, perfect start to their qualifying campaign. it weak, perfect start to their qualifying campaign. it was like a second debut. _ qualifying campaign. it was like a second debut. a _ qualifying campaign. it was like a second debut. a a _ qualifying campaign. it was like a second debut. a a lifetime - qualifying campaign. it was like a second debut. a a lifetime ago i qualifying campaign. it was like a i second debut. a a lifetime ago since that montenegrin game and it felt brilliant and if i had been out there, it would be refreshing to be out there with the lads and with a strong team in the big game and i really enjoyed it. im’ith strong team in the big game and i really enjoyed it.— strong team in the big game and i really enjoyed it. really en'oyed it. with a maximum six really enjoyed it. with a maximum six oints really enjoyed it. with a maximum six points of— really enjoyed it. with a maximum six points of the _ really enjoyed it. with a maximum six points of the playing _ really enjoyed it. with a maximum six points of the playing the - really enjoyed it. with a maximum six points of the playing the two i six points of the playing the two strongest teams in their group. in the returned action injune with more to add in macedonia to come next, they'll be confident to extend the winning run. not such good news for northern ireland to have lost one after slipping to 1—0 defeat in belfast and finland, they lost their first game at denmark but went ahead and half an hour through, charles thought equal rights to equalised at the brick —— equalised at the break.
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in mid june. the racists really heating up. manchester city after beating chelsea 2—0. the international lauren stand performances all around the scoring second ave and set up the hosts first in level on point with leaders manchester united but also means that the top four are separated by only three points. to cricket in mumbai has been crowned the champion of the inaugural women's premier league with the wicked victory. in front of a raucous cloud at the stadium and mumbai, they are in trouble at 35—3 as wong took three wickets and it was uphill from there. six wickets forjust slipping from 71—3 to 79 — nine. he did recover to production 31 from nine from there in 20 office but then, it
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was time for the brunt to takes the centre stage. in scoring 60 not out and they reach the target of 132 and three balls to spare. in the cross title of the crystal globe, racing and could only finish third in the semifinal and fearing to reach the final but did manage to secure enough points to clean the overall title. from the rest of the team. goodbye. screaming. i'm at the men arena in manchester, there's a bombjust
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gone off in the foyer. ok, just hold the line. go that way. may the 23rd, the day after the arena attack. to the manchester arena. so we've got mass—casualties, it does look like it's been like a nail bomb. there's bolts and shrapnel everywhere inside. an area packed full of happy children and their families leaving the ariana grande concert. 22 people are killed, hundreds injured. it's the most devastating terrorist attack on uk soil since the london bombings in july 2005. the bomber was a young mancunian, radicalised to the point where he could kill and maim children in the heart of the city he was born and raised in.
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what was salman abedi's journey towards mass murder? could the attack have been stopped? the final day of the manchester arena inquiry. it's lasted more than two years, heard from 267 witnesses and collected tens of thousands of pages of evidence. it's the day when the families of the 22 victims will hear inquiry chairman sirjohn saunders' verdict on how the security services dealt with salman abedi, someone who'd been known to them for years before the attack. he said there were failures. there was a realistic possibility that actionable intelligence could have been obtained, which might have led to action preventing the attack. the reasons for this missed opportunity included a failure by the security service, in my view, to act swiftly enough. those that played any part in the murder of our children
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will never, ever get forgiveness. from top to bottom, mi5, to the associates of the attacker, we will always believe that you all played a part in the murder of our children. as a result of these failures, at the very least, a real- possibility of preventing this attack was lost. - this is a devastating conclusion for us. i may the 23rd, the day after the arena attack. the hunt for answers has begun. detectives and forensic teams descend on salman abedi's home. it's the starting point of a trail that will lead from the unremarkable streets of inner city south manchester to a north african war zone and into the dark complexities of radicalisation. salman abedi was a mancunian of libyan background, born and raised on these streets.
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he went to primary school round the corner, secondary school down the road. he was a manchester united supporter, played football on the streets with his mates, took little interest in schoolwork. a pretty typical teenage boy. but those teenage years became increasingly unstable. there were fights, shouting matches with teachers, petty crime. the head teacher at burnage high school described him as unlikable, lacklustre, just not engaged. moss side/hulme was a big hunting ground for people trying to recruit young people, especially for is and other related groups. due to social deprivation, people feeling marginalised, disenfranchised. ismael lee south spends his life trying to tackle the spread of islamic extremism. he says some young muslims like salman abedi were seduced by the violent glamour of the is story, a stark contrast to their lives here. these things you would see
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on everyday news, front page of the newspapers are muslims, benefit frauds, benefit thieves. so muslims were very demonised, muslim youths were demonised and disenfranchised. so many muslims felt under attack. so when people were seeing the marketing of is, they were saying, "hey, i'm hated, but this could be a place "where i can live, where i'm free, where i can live in, "like in a utopia." salman abedi accessed extreme islamist propaganda online, but it was his immediate family who exerted the strongest influence. his father, ramadan abedi, was a hardcore islamist who fled gaddafi's regime. he arrived in manchester with his wife samir in 1993 and settled into what was to become the largest libyan exile community in the uk. people living in this area call it little tripoli. ramadan was a member of the libyan islamic fighting group. it's thought all the key figures in this organisation lived in manchester at some point.
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in 2010, there was a report produced by the joint terrorism analysis centre, which is, jtac, that's a, that's an office that exists in the heart of m15. and within that report, they highlighted that the libyan community or members of the libyan community were at risk of being radicalised, the younger members at risk of being radicalised by some of the older members who had perhaps lived through the gaddafi regime, who had got a different view around islamism and that this activity was going on. i'd like to think that if that report arrived on somebody's desk today, they'd look at it and they'd think, "0k, we need some sort of community strategy to try and disrupt what's "going on", or actually understand better what's going on and identify those specific individuals who are involved. i see no evidence in the inquiry
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that that happened. one of those libyan extremists living in the city was this man, anas al—libi, a friend of ramadan abedi. given asylum here in 1995, he was later arrested by the us government, accused of plotting attacks on us embassies in nairobi and dar es salaam. this 180 page text on how to wage a jihadist war was found in his flat. it's now known as the manchester manual. salman abedi's brothers, ismail and hashem were also significant influences. the investigation revealed they both had large amounts of material relating to is. ismail, bbc news, can i ask you a few questions, please? ismail refused to give evidence to the inquiry or talk to the bbc and is now in libya. why won't you speak to the inquiry? hashem was jailed for life for his part in planning the arena attack. disengaged, angry, salman abedi was, according to one expert witness to the arena inquiry,
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ripe for radicalisation. his close family clearly didn't, held the law in this country in pretty scant regard. it didn't really matter too much if they broke it. that was the first thing. so he had no connection to the legal side of british life in the sense of being law—abiding, getting a law—abiding world view, as we've already mentioned, for various reasons, such as lack of parental support. he didn't engage with that massive mechanism of mainstream education that wasn't open to him, although he did try, to be fair. he had various moments when he tried to engage. erm, and so really, he had no, no active connection to law—abiding british society. i must admit, i've never seen such a complete picture of, of the petri dish absolutely brimming with germs, if you like. chanting prayers.
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didsbury mosque, the abedi family worshipped here. the arena inquiry heard claims from the family's legal teams that the mosque had turned a blind eye to extremism. sirjohn didn't find any evidence of that or that it radicalised salman abedi, but he said it wilfully ignored highly charged political tensions between libyan factions there. for the first time, the mosque agreed to answer those extremism allegations. how can people say that we have radicalised or are radicalising people? as i mentioned to other people, my children could have been at the arena. there were muslim children at the arena. what that person, salman abedi, did was evil. and he definitely did not become radicalised by listening to a ten—minute sermon here orjoin forces with other so—called terrorists or other radicalised
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people at the centre. we have no room for radicalisation. i can say that 100%, i'm very sure. tell me about your relationship with the police and security services. i mean, there were some criticism that you hadn't worked, this mosque hadn't worked that closely. but were you ever told anything about abedi? you know, were you ever given any worrying information? we were never told anything about abedi. and i would reiterate and repeat that we were never told anything about abedi or anybody else. there were other terrorists who we were told used to frequent the centre. we never knew them. we were never told about them. of course, i'm going to criticise the police, if they knew, had they been told by the counterterrorism unit that these people are frequenting this mosque or that mosque? and remember something else, it is not only this mosque that these people frequented. i do feel that this centre is being used as a scapegoat.
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i really do feel that. i know that the police and the ctu will always do their best. but as i said earlier on, and i'll repeat it, if we are not aware of these radical people who are coming to this centre to pray and go, i cannot help the police. they refuse to tell us. we never know anything about what's going on. we want to really put this behind us. but again, i cannot put everything that's happened behind me. 22 victims have gone. i cannot forget about them. may their souls rest in peace. whatever happened in manchester, it was the collapse of the gaddafi regime in 2011 and the years of civil war that followed that appear to have played a major part in turning radicalised salman abedi into a killer. from 2011, salman abedi and his brothers made numerous trips to libya to join their parents and may have fought with the libyan islamic fighting group. anyone being involved i in a conflict zone is likely to instigate a degree of trauma.
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they would have seen things, - experience things that we wouldn't normally expect, especially young teenagers, to go through - in the united kingdom. but also alongside that, _ we see a normalisation of violence. we see a normalisation of violence such that it becomes _ a solution to problems. it becomes something that they can imagine doing because they can- see other people doing. but it also reinforces . a sense of masculinity, especially where becoming a hero, a defender, being willing - to protect through violence, - through willingness to take up arms, is linked to being. a hero, a good man. following his trips to libya, salman abedi became increasingly withdrawn. the partying stopped. he was seen in the street outside his home, chanting prayers and wearing robes. he argued with fellow muslims who condemned is. he intensified his contact with this man, abdulraouf abdallah, who'd also fought in libya.
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the pair exchanged hundreds of texts, in some of them salman abedi talked of martyrdom. abdallah was laterjailed for trying to recruit fighters for is. salman abedi visited him in prison. abdallah gave evidence at the arena inquiry. i didn't play any part - of radicalisation or anything. iand again, just to tell you that myl fight was against gaddafi and assad and the dictators in our countries. did you ever have any suspicion that he would become a suicide bomber? not me or my friends or anyone... ..had... ..any idea of what was going on in salman's head. - the fact is, when it happened, i heard it on the radio- because i was in basic at the time in prison, and i actually— called my friend elias on a prison phone, and i was crying - and confused and shocked.
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i said, "what the hell happened? "i thought he was in libya." he said, "it's true, yeah, it is him. - it's in the news." so... what happened to salman? it's a very... it's a very, something that... ..i can never, ever, - ever take out of my mind. and it's haunting me to know because he's my friend - and the salman that i knew... ..he had never, ever spoke about something like that. i salman abedi returned from his final visit to libya in early may 2017. an unhappy, angry young man radicalised by his family, his friends online propaganda and exposure to violent conflict. he was days away from launching his devastating attack. he put the bomb together here at a rented city centre flat. the parts collected over several weeks with the help of his younger brother, hashem.
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at seven in the evening, salman abedi set out to maim and kill, the rucksack he was carrying packed with 3,000 nuts and bolts around the explosive. salman abedi's final journey to the arena. as the crowds filled the city room, he detonated the device. witnesses said he smiled as he did so. 22 dead, more than 200 injured. could m15 and counter—terrorism officers have prevented the attack? that was the focus of the third part of the manchester arena inquiry in 2022. much of the evidence was heard behind closed doors,
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a decision that angered families of the victims. but the inquiry did reveal that abedi had been known to police and m15 for years. members of the libyan community reported abedi to an anti—terrorism hotline. no further action was taken. m15 twice classified abedi as a subject of interest, but he was regarded as low level and his case file was closed. in 2014, abdulraouf abdallah's phone was seized in a counter—terrorism raid on his manchesterflat. there was no attempt to track down his friend salman, who sent texts about martyrdom. when abdallah's phone was seized, erm... ..abedi's telephone number was on that phone. it was identified as a distinct phone number, but no further investigative work was done to figure out who that person was. for me, it is again another
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missed opportunity. m15 knew that he was visiting abdallah. does the detail of what was in those messages, had they been ascribed back to abedi, possibly change our view of the intensity of the contact that he was having and the nature of the contact he was having with abdallah? i think probably, yes. in 2015 and 2016, salman abedi's name cropped up during investigations into extremists in manchester. his case wasn't reopened. may 2016, and concerns were raised that he travelled from turkey into libya. he wasn't questioned on his return. in 2017, he returned from another trip to libya, days before the attack. again, he wasn't spoken to. that stop could have been useful. we don't know, but it could have been useful. it could have been useful for a number of reasons. first of all, it is possible that they would have gained
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intelligence from material that he would have had on him, like a phone, commonly. but secondly, it could have also acted as a disruption or deterrence. coming back from your route to libya, landing at heathrow or manchester, wherever it might be, and being stopped by the police under the terrorism act is probably going to say to you, you're being watched. and might that have affected his psyche? might that have changed his approach? we will never know. but the scale of the challenge faced by the security services can't be underestimated. in 2017, they were dealing with around 800 active investigations into potential terrorist attacks. there were 3,000 subjects of interest that were being monitored at some level. but there were more than 20,000 former or lapsed subjects of interest no longer being monitored. and salman abedi was in this category. for the families of the 22 victims and the survivors of the attack,
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the third volume of the arena report was the one they'd been waiting for. answers to the big question — could the security services have anticipated and stopped salman abedi's attack? there are plenty of mights and could haves in sirjohn saunders' 200—page report, but he does conclude there were missed opportunities, two pieces of intelligence relating to abedi that may have led to the plot being uncovered. this, according to sirjohn, could have led police to the car where the bomb was being stored. the criticism of m15 prompted a rare public apology from the agency, but they refused to take questions. gathering covert intelligence is difficult, but had we managed to seize the slim chance we had, those impacted might not have experienced such appalling loss and trauma. i am profoundly sorry that m15
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did not prevent the attack. martyn hett was one of abedi's 22 victims. pr manager, coronation street superfan, described by his friends as a one—man hen party. he suffered unsurvivable injuries in the blast. for his mother, figen murray, sirjohn saunders' findings weren't a surprise. turning the clock back, i'm sure things would have maybe been done differently with the benefit of hindsight, but hindsight wasn't there, and whatever went wrong went wrong and you can't turn the clock back. so, this is the situation we are faced with. a lot of the families have got a real intense anger, as i'm sure you can understand. you haven't, have you? i have not been angry because anger to me is not a very useful emotion. i'd much rather channel my energy into proactivity and, and moving forward because, you know, martyn was such
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a fun—loving and people—loving guy. he was so full ofjoy. and i think if i was angry, depressed, sad all the time, i, erm, i'd do his very essence a disservice. the day after the anniversary, i remember coming downstairs and saying to my husband, the anniversary is over now. i now feel i need to go to schools because i felt that young people are so vulnerable to radicalisation and ijust wanted to give them the tools to know what to do if they feel they're being radicalised and also the knowledge to even know and recognise how they're being or if they're being radicalised. obviously, when the attack happened we didn't have the tv or radio on because we were all really upset, understandably. and yet, somebody kept buying newspapers and putting them
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on the dining room table. and i remember on day three, walking past the table and going, "oh, my god!" and i saw the picture of him for the first time because i didn't know who did the attack. and there he was on the front page and the caption said he was 22 years old. so, i was shocked at the young age of the guy. so i've forgiven salman abedi because, as far as i'm concerned, he wasn't the true monster. the true monster is the ideology who turns people into extremists and turns them into people who go and kill. so i feel that he was born innocent and, erm... therefore, i feel that on that day, 23 people died. not 22. people always mention 22, but actually the 23rd person lost their life as well. and that was salman abedi. and now you're at the end of that two—year process, do you feel that word "closure" or how do you feel now?
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no, no. you know, martyn died out of sequence. it should have been me dying before him. so he was ripped off out of our lives. and he was young and full of life and joy. so, i've got a permanent, martyn—shaped hole in my soul that will always be there till the day i die. i'm... i feel very broken, but not destroyed. and the brokenness is, is something that will never allow me to have closure. you know, it can't be fixed.
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for into the last working week of march and were starting off on the court but try note from monday with spells of sunshine around with the cold spell and on tuesday onwards it will turn wet and windy in the
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southwest and turning very mild once again. high pressure dominating the scene for monday and blue colours, the arctic air mass around in a court start some frost around in a bit of northeastern areas with us if you enter showers and the chance the chart to bubble up across england and wales the afternoon in most places drove us and most places drove with an expense continuing with light winds and top temperatures ranging from around seven to 11 or so later in the day as the breeze in the cloud starts to pick up here. through monday nights, the system starts to work its way and western areas bringing clouds and western areas bringing clouds and breeze with topics of wranglers eastern areas will tend to stay chilly with clear skies and another co—ordinate a ship returning milder out west.
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welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines. protestors take to the streets in tel aviv — including outside the home of prime minister benjamin netanyahu injerusalam — after he sacks his defence minister for condemning his controversialjudicial reforms. warnings of more severe weather in mississippi — after a powerful tornado kills at least 26 people. two boats carrying migrants sink off the coast of tunisia. 29 people have died and others are still missing. anger grows as new figures show nearly 3 thousand children were strip—searched by police forces in england and wales over four years. and the campaigner who's run 200 marathons in the last year to highlight the issue of water overconsumption

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