The suicide bomber who killed 22 people and injured dozens more at the Manchester Arena has been named as 22-year-old Salman Abedi.
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 parents 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.
They had three sons in total and a daughter, who is now 18-years-old.
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.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/23/salman-abedi-named-manchester-suicide-bomber-know/
No.
No, no, no, no, no,
NO.
I don't care about this fucking piece of filth. Don't wanna know his name. Don't wanna know his history. Don't care how he grew up. Don't care if he was a good boy, a sorry loser or a bloodthirsty radicalized fanatic. Don't want to know a damn thing about him.
We have been here too many times. We were here when a piece of filth drove his SUV into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge, killing
four and then jumped out and
stabbed a police officer to death.
We were here when a piece of filth drove a hijacked truck into a Christmas marketplace in Berlin and killed
12.
We were here when a piece of filth drove a truck into crowds in gathered for Bastille Day in Nice and killed
86.
We were here when pieces of filth targeted the airport and subway in Brussels and killed
32.
We were here when pieces of filth carried out mass attacks in Paris including a concert hall and killed
130.
We were here when pieces of filth attacked the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hedbo and a kosher grocery and killed
17.
We were here when pieces of filth slaughtered 77 in Norway, 52 in London, 191 in Madrid. We were here when pieces of filth did their evil on September 11, 2001, and Fort Hood and Orlando and San Bernadino and Oklahoma City and the Boston Marathon.
Each and every time, we went back to sleep. We returned to normal or what passes for normalcy now. Terrorism is the new normal. Yes, you're more likely to perish from slipping in the shower or during your morning commute to work than you are from a radicalized terrorist targeting you, but don't tell me the odds. Tell me why I shouldn't fear being among large groups of people that tempt killers with soft targets of opportunity and the possibility of large body counts.
Make no mistake about it, when you target the audience of an Ariana Grande, you are targeting the very young and their parents, and most of them will be young. You not only know this, you're hoping to kill as many young people as you can and the youngest victim of the Manchester suicide bombing was only 8-years old.
There is a war going on and the stakes are nothing less than the survival of the free world against the barbarians lusting to destroy it. They can't live in this world, but they can kill in it. No one is off-limits. Everyone is a target.
We can't go on like this. We can't go on blithely accepting this with a helpless shoulder shrug and unanswered prayers as the New Normal.
This is the New Abnormal.
This is madness and the madmen must be destroyed. We are quite literally in a fight for our lives against an evil and implacable enemy. When someone with blood in their eyes, and an insane cause they are eager to kill for presses a sharpened knife at your throat that's the wrong time to try and understand their motivations. They don't see us as human beings. They see us only as targets.
Whether it's radicals on the Right or radicals on the Left. Whether it is based on religious dogma or simple fanaticism, the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians poses an immediate threat to the civilized world, and it is one which must be neutralized and eradicated. Methodically, thoroughly and completely. With little restraint and less mercy.
That's how they are coming for us. We are at war and they are playing to win. We can't do any less. Not unless we want more of the same.