The missed chances to identify terror attack threats

Abedi – who was not under investigation – left 22 people dead, including a Scots teenager, after detonating a home-made device as fans of the US singer left the gig at Manchester Arena on May 22.

The claims are made in a official intelligence assessment by David Anderson QC, into the incident, a subsequent attack on London Bridge and in Borough Market, one in Finsbury Park and an earlier car and knife rampage in Westminster.

The former anti-terror laws watchdog said MI5 came by information about Abedi that should have led to an inquiry being opened into him.

Among the victims of the Manchester bombing were teenagers and young children leaving the Grande concert. They included Eilidh MacLeod, 14, from Barra. Her friend Laura MacIntyre, 15, was badly injured.

Mr Anderson’s review says MI5 came by unspecified intelligence in the months before the attack which, “had its true significance been properly understood”, would have caused an investigation into him to be opened.

The report says: “It is unknowable whether such an investigation would have allowed Abedi’s plans to be pre-empted and thwarted. MI5 assesses that it would not.”

Abedi was also identified by a separate “data-washing exercise” as falling within a small number of former subjects of interest who merited further consideration.

However, a meeting to consider the results of this process had not been held at the time of the bombing.

An opportunity was also missed to place Abedi on “ports action” after he travelled to Libya in April.

The report says: “It is conceivable that the Manchester attack ... might have been averted had the cards fallen differently.”

Meanwhile, Mr Anderson said MI5 was “actively” investigating Khuram Butt, ringleader of the London Bridge atrocity on the night on June 3. He was part of a three-man gang who crashed into pedestrians and went on a knife rampage in nearby Borough Market, which was packed with people watching the Champions League final in pubs and dining out.

A total of eight people were murdered.

They had also previously probed Khalid Masood, the lone attacker who drove a hire car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge on March 22. He killed four people, and stabbed Pc Keith Palmer to death, with a fifth victim dying in hospital.

Mr Anderson notes that, other than in Finsbury Park, it cannot be said that MI5 and police were “entirely blindsided”.

The report says: “Khalid Masood and Salman Abedi had both been subjects of interest, and Khuram Butt remained under active investigation. Substantial and appropriate coverage was in place around key individuals, and mechanisms designed to assess risk were working as intended.

“MI5 and counter-terrorism policing got a great deal right; particularly in the case of Manchester, they could have succeeded had the cards fallen differently.”

Masood was known to police and MI5 for association with extremists but he was a “closed” subject of interest at the time of the atrocity in March. Intelligence officers and police had no reason to anticipate his murderous actions, according to the report.

It also reveals how, in the days prior to his attack, Masood conducted reconnaissance of Westminster Bridge in person and online, and browsed YouTube for videos relating to terrorism.

Minutes before he struck, the terrorist shared a “Jihad document” with numerous WhatsApp contacts.

Butt, who led the three-strong gang behind the London Bridge van and knife attack in June, was the principal subject of an MI5 investigation from mid-2015 until the date of the deadly assault.

The report says material relating to Butt received in the two weeks prior to the attack added little to the intelligence picture.

Another of the London Bridge gang, Youssef Zaghba, was placed on an EU warning list in March last year.

However, Italian authorities placed him on the database under a marker identifying him as being subject to checks for serious crime rather than one which would have led to him being automatically identified as a national security risk.

Meanwhile, Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, from London, and Mohammed Aqib Imran, 21, from Birmingham, have been charged with plotting attacks and are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court today.

Report reveals months of preparation before Westminster Bridge outrage

Khalid Masood conducted “reconnaissance” of Westminster Bridge just days before carrying out his deadly attack, the report reveals.

Masood, 52 – who killed five people in a knife and car rampage before being shot dead by police on March 22 – was known to police and MI5, but was officially “closed” as a subject of interest in 2012.

The report details how he searched violent attacks, knives, Isis and vehicles online as early as April last year.

He bought two Sabatier carving knives from a Tesco in Birmingham on March 9 this year, before collecting the Hyundai Tucson used in the attack on March 16.

Masood carried out reconnaissance online and in person on March 19 and browsed YouTube for terrorist videos, including suicide attacks.

He shared a “Jihad document” on secure messaging service WhatsApp just minutes before he struck.

The details emerged along with Masood’s history with police and MI5.

Born Adrian Elms in 1964, he grew up in Kent and has a long criminal past, including seven convictions between 1983 and 2003. Masood, who also used the surname Ajao, had four children from a relationships in the 1990s and 2007.

He lived in Eastbourne, Crawley and Luton before settling in Birmingham in 2012.

It is believed he converted to Islam while serving a two-year prison sentence, imposed in 2000, for stabbing someone in the face.

He was the subject of an MI5 investigation between 2010 and 2012, but was on the periphery of probes from as early as 2004, because of his contact with other terror suspects.

The assessment published yesterday said none of the “intelligence relating to him suggested attack planning aspirations”, and he was closed as a subject of interest in October 2012.

The report says he continued to appear as a contact of others being investigated between 2012 and 2016, including those linked to the banned terror group, ALM. But an MI5 review team concluded actions taken in relation to the threat he posed “were sound on the basis of the information available”.

Counter-terror teams run about 500 live investigations involving 3,000 people at any one time. There are also 20,000 subjects of previous probes.

The full internal reviews, which are highly classified and run to more than 1,100 pages, contain 126 recommendations.

Mr Anderson, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: “In particular, MI5 and the police have identified the need to use data more effectively, to share knowledge more widely, to improve their own collaboration and to assess and investigate terrorist threats on a uniform basis, whatever the ideology that inspires them.”