Daily Mail

This is the moment anti-terror police swooped to arrest a man over last night’s ISIS suicide bomb atrocity at Manchester Arena.

Footage shows officers leading the handcuffed 23-year-old to a police van outside a Morrisons supermarket in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, south Manchester at about 10.30am this morning.

Witnesses said the man was ordered to ‘get on the ground’ and that he was seen smiling as a team of officers, who had arrived in a black Mercedes, made the arrest.

The arrest came hours after ISIS terrorist Salman Abedi, 22, slaughtered 22 peoples and injured another 119 after an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena.

ISIS have claimed responsibility for the atrocity and threatened further attacks, saying ‘one of the caliphate’s soldiers placed bombs within a gathering of the Crusaders’.

Armed officers this afternoon executed warrants at a block of flats in Whalley Range and at a redbrick home in Fallowfield, where a controlled explosion took place at about 12.30pm.

Residents reported hearing a loud blast, which they believed was the police gaining entry to a house in the quiet side street.

A neighbour of one of the properties raided today said that a Libyan family lived there and that she had heard ‘Islamic prayers and chanting’ at the house weeks before the attack.

This is the moment anti-terror police swooped to arrest a man over last night’s  ISIS suicide bomb atrocity at Manchester Arena

Alan and Frances Kinsey filmed the dramatic police raid on the semi-detached property in their quiet street

The footage shows a line of more than 30 officers, all armed, approaching the house.

All of the officers were wearing grey, specialist firearms uniforms with helmets and goggles.

Vehicle transporter Mr Kinsey, 52, said the officers put a black strip down the door, retreated and then 60 to 90 seconds later there was a loud explosion.

He said: ‘Armed police came down. There must have been 30 and 40 of them. Some were dressed in khaki and some of them were in police uniforms. All armed. A couple of them had riot shields.’

Mr Kinsey said dogs were taken into the house with the armed officers but he was adamant no-one was brought out.

He said: ‘They didn’t find anybody in the house at the time. We kept watching and they didn’t bring anybody out.’

Asked about other reports of an arrest in the street, he said: ‘That must have been somewhere else because there wasn’t anybody brought out.’

Earlier today police with their faces partially covered stopped an Asian man who was carrying a rucksack as he walked along the street in the suburb of Chorlton, about five miles from Manchester city centre.

Witness Karwan Faraj described how police shouted ‘get on the ground’ as they appeared to ambush the young man.

He said the suspect complied with police instruction immediately and lay on the ground as other officers arrived.

Faraj, 48, who shot the video, said: ‘The police just appeared and started shouting at the man to get on he ground. He did look a bit shocked but then had a smile on his face.

‘There were about four police cars that came up and blocked the road. Some of the police had guns and they had half their faces covered.’

As other witnesses stopped to see what was happening a police van with its blue lights flashing pulled up.

The suspect was kept on the ground for several minutes before being led in handcuffs to the rear of the van. A police officer carried his black rucksack and opened a side door to place the bag inside.’

Faraj, who runs a printing shop opposite a Morrison’s Supermarket, said he did not hear the suspect say anything to police. He described him of being Asian appearance.

Later, armed police sealed off a nearby road as residents heard a large bang in the street.

Rosemary Ward, 21, said: ‘They were all running out of the house when a big bomb went off. That’s obviously what it was because the whole house was shaking. Everyone was panicking.

‘I heard there was 20 people in that one house. It was scary. I’m shaking. I’m just worried about my child.’

Resident Neville Edwards, 32, said the explosion shook his mother’s house in the next street and was heard a quarter of a mile away.

‘It scared the living daylights out of her and my nephew,’ he said.

‘There’s been a few names bandied about that I’ve not heard of before.

‘The couple that used to live there are an elderly couple but, from what I’ve been told by residents who live just adjacent, the property’s been rented out for the last 12 to 18 months. Nobody knows anything else about it.’

Police activity also centred on a flat in a newly-built four-storey block of apartments in Carlton Street in Whalley Range, a mile from the other address being raided in south Manchester.

Officers stood guard outside the entrance while more uniformed police and detectives in suits could be seen entering the building.

Student Mussab Amari said he was in bed when he was awoken by a loud bang around noon and went to investigate as police raided a flat in the block he was staying in.

Mr Amari, 22, said: ‘I was asleep and I heard a bang so I opened a window and all I could see is everyone was armed and everywhere was surrounded.

‘I heard a bang but I’m not sure what it is, was it the door breaking or they throw something? I came downstairs. I asked the police officer, he said I can’t say nothing now.

‘I said to him can I go back inside because I’ve got college now and he said, ‘No, for your own safety you have to stay outside’.

‘I just panicked when I heard that bang because I was asleep. I was looking at the news last night so as soon as I seen rifles and that, that came into my head straight away. All I could see was everyone was armed.

‘I didn’t see them get anyone, didn’t see them take anything out. Dogs went in…’

Mr Amari said police stood guard around one flat in the block but he did not know the person who lives there.

He added: ‘I don’t know the guy. I’ve never seen him.’

Azim Ahmed, 31, said his wife contemplated jumping out of their flat’s window after hearing a sound that she ‘thought was a bomb’ following the raid

Sana Ali, 30, and three-month-old Ismail Ahmed were in their ground floor flat when armed police stormed a flat above them.

Azim, a claims manager, said: ‘When the police turned up and forced entry there was a loud bang and it was so loud the impact was felt through to our flat.

‘She got scared thinking it was a bomb. She started to cry and put her head out the window. She saw all the armed units and she was crying to them saying ‘look, what’s going on, I need help’.

‘She had a little three-month-old baby with her. We didn’t know what that big bang was and if there was anything to follow.

‘She had her head out the window and she was saying ‘I’m ready to jump out’. That’s how bad it was.

‘It took me like 20 minutes to get here. It was all sealed off and nobody was allowed in or out. I just wanted to get them out safely. She’s shaken. The impact of that bang, especially after last night, really shook her up.

Further down the street armed police appeared to be having a briefing stood by police cars, a hundred yards from a growing army of press, including correspondents from across the world, gathered at the entrance to the block of flats.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for last night’s massacre and threatened further attacks, saying ‘one of the caliphate’s soldiers placed bombs within a gathering of the Crusaders’. There are unconfirmed reports this afternoon that the terrorist was British and that he may have been known to police before the massacre.

Meanwhile, police are combing CCTV to determine whether the attacker carried out a ‘recce’ of the arena before detonating a nail bomb as thousands were leaving the concert at 10.30pm.

The suicide attacker is said to have been ‘known’ to the authorities and anti-terrorist officers are going through hundreds of hours of CCTV footage trying to ‘pick him up’ during his journey to the arena.

Officers also believe that he will have carried out a ‘recce’ to the giant venue in recent days and a separate team are studying footage going back into the past week.

Forensic and bomb squad officers are studying the remains of the device recovered so far but initial indications are that the bombmaker had used a ‘level of sophistication’ suggesting he had received training and not made it from ‘a terror recipe’ on the Internet.

One security source told MailOnline: ‘It is unlikely that if the device was sophisticated that the suicide bomber made it – experience shows that organisations are reluctant to ‘waste’ the expertise of a bombmaker in an attack, preferring to keep him or her for another attack.

‘It is therefore highly likely that this terrorist is part of a cell or had a support network and they are the priority.

‘Are there other devices, other terrorists out there and you can expect to see raids carried out in the next 48 hours linked to this.’

Detectives are also studying the bomber’s links to Syria or other jihadi hotbeds amid intelligence that he may have travelled abroad to the region.

At least 16 convicted or dead jihadi terrorists are known to have come from a small area of Manchester and several surveillance operations on suspects from the region have been on-going.

Possible links to ISIS-inspired cells involved in the Belgium, Paris and Stockholm attacks are also being examined.

Children were among the 22 people killed as the explosion tore through fans leaving the pop concert at about 10.30pm last night.

Some 119 people were also injured in the blast caused by an improvised explosive device carried by the attacker, who was also killed.

Experts say the bomber employed a ‘sophisticated’ method of attack using a a device packed with nuts and bolts, so-called ‘dockyard confetti’, to cause maximum damage.

Former police officer and counter-terrorism expert Chris Phillips described the latest attack to hit the UK as ‘a step up’.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I think the point is that this was obviously a planned attack and that will involve people looking at the venue and seeing how the venue operates.

‘And also the fact that it sounds like this was a strapped on suicide belt and also from what we just heard, perhaps, with what we call dockyard confetti which is the little bits of nuts and bolts that are attached to the vest.

‘And those unfortunately are there deliberately to kill people and that’s the whole purpose of them. This does look like a step up and my worry, and I think the police’s worry now, is that this person probably wasn’t acting alone and there are other people that to be captured.’

Britain’s terrorist threat level stands at ‘severe,’ the second-highest rung on a five-point scale, meaning an attack is highly likely. Counter-terrorism police have said they are making on average an arrest every day in connection with suspected terrorism.

For the second time in two months, police and security services are embarking on a major terror investigation.

As with the Westminster atrocity in March, in which five were killed, the most pressing question is whether the individual behind the Manchester blast was a so-called ‘lone wolf’ or part of a wider terror cell.

The working theory is that the perpetrator triggered the blast alone but the national police counter-terror network, assisted by MI5, are urgently piecing together his background to see whether he had any help in planning the outrage.

They will be looking to build a picture of the attacker’s movements both in recent weeks and months as well as immediately before the strike.

Another priority will be to establish whether any further linked attacks or copycat incidents are planned.

It is likely that the bomber’s communications will form a significant part of the inquiry, while investigators will also be checking if he was known to authorities in any way.

One area of focus will be examining the remnants of the device used in the attack as officers work to establish whether the perpetrator built it himself or had help.

As well as seeking to identify any potential accomplices in Britain, authorities will also be looking into the possibility of any link to international groups.

In the first hours after an attack on this scale investigators will be sifting through a number of theories as they work to settle on the most likely lines of inquiry.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Supporters of the ISIS, which holds territory in Iraq’s Mosul and around its de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, celebrated the blast online.

One wrote: ‘May they taste what the weak people in Mosul and (Raqqa) experience from their being bombed and burned,’ according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group.

Focus will now turn on why Manchester was selected as a target.

It comes two months after a 35-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman were arrested at an address in West Didsbury, Manchester on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts.

The raids were linked to the Westminster attack that month in which Khalid Masood killed five and injured more than 50 by driving through crowds of tourists.

Earlier this year, Manchester-born jihadi Jamal Al-Harith was killed carrying out an ISIS suicide car bomb attack in Iraq.

Shortly after detonating the explosive-laden car near an army base, ISIS released a statement revealing al-Harith had been fighting for them under the name Abu Zakariya al-Britani.

Leaked ISIS documents later claimed he was recommended to the terror group by Raphael Hostey, a 24-year-old jihadi based in the northern city.

Hostey is thought to have encouraged dozens of British Muslims to travel to Syria – including close friends Mohammad Azzam Javeed and Anil Khalil Raoufi – before being killed in a drone strike last May.

Last year, two British brothers from Manchester were killed fighting for ISIS in Syria.

Khalif Shariff, 21, and 18-year-old Abdulrahman are understood to have left their home in the city and travelled to the war-torn country in November 2014.

In 2015, Pakistani student Abid Naseer was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up the Arndale shopping centre in the centre of Manchester in April 2009.

In September, a Manchester florist was stunned after his image was used in an ISIS magazine.

Stephen Leyland, 64, was interviewed by counter-terrorism police after a photograph of him standing next to flowers was used in the Rumiyah publication.

The ranting 38-page magazine was one of many pieces of propaganda aimed at encouraging violence in the West.

It called for attacks on Britons and urged supporters of the terror group to take ‘even the blood of a merry Crusader citizen selling flowers to passersby’.

Two months later, fanatics urged lone-wolf attackers to ‘open the door to jihad’ in a video showing how to make a bomb and decapitate people.

The instructional video, called ‘Explanation of How to Slaughter Disbelievers’, featured a balaclava-wearing terrorist in a kitchen explaining how to make bombs.

According to the terror monitoring group SITE, the bomb expert took viewers on a step-by-step guide on how to make deadly explosives.

Approximately 850 people from the UK have travelled to support or fight for jihadist organisations in Syria and Iraq, according to British authorities.

About half have since returned to the UK, with more than 100 people having been convicted for offences relating to the conflict.

Former global terrorism operations director at MI6, Richard Barrett, said, while the attack was more sophisticated than recent ones, it does not automatically mean the person responsible was trained abroad to carry out the massacre.

He told Today: ‘I think people can build bombs, we have seen that in the past that it may be not that complicated to build a bomb which has an effect on the people immediately around you as this one certainly did.

‘Yeah, sure that’s a bit more sophisticated clearly than driving a car into people or stabbing them with a knife but I’m not sure that it requires somebody to go to Syria for example, to have training there to get that sort of expertise so I’m sure the police will be very interested indeed to look at whoever is responsible, what he has been doing over the last months.’

He said the security services face a ‘real challenge’ in monitoring potential threats and said investigations must involve ‘engagement’ with communities.

He said: ‘I think in terms of additional security it’s much more on that intelligence side, on engagement with the community, on trying to understand better why people do this sort of thing than it is on putting up more bollards or, as you say, moving the choke point of security just a bit further away.’

He described the attack, targeted at concert-goers including children, as ‘very, very cynical’.

He added: ‘That is why it is so important to understand, I think, whether this person was connected with other people, whether it was in some way directed by an organised group.

‘What was the intention behind it, in the broader strategic sense?’

The Manchester attack was the deadliest in Britain since four suicide bombers killed 52 London commuters on three subway trains and a bus in July 2005.

Pop concerts and nightclubs have been a terrorism target before. Almost 90 people were killed by gunmen inspired by ISIS at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a performance by Eagles of Death Metal in November 2015.

In Turkey, 39 people died when a gunman attacked New Year’s revelers at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul.

Manchester was hit by a huge Irish Republican Army bomb in 1996 that leveled a swath of the city center. More than 200 people were injured, though no one was killed.