London: Nearly 23,000 terror suspects may be at large across Britain, the country’s intelligence community say after the deadly Manchester attack.
Reports that Libyan-origin Salman Abedi had been on the radar of intelligence services had added pressure on MI5 to reveal what they knew. Now, government sources have told sections of the UK media that they believe 23,000 people with extremist tendencies are living in the UK.
About 3,000 people from the total group are judged to pose a threat and are under investigation or active monitoring in 500 operations being run by police and intelligence services. The 20,000 others have featured in previous inquiries and are categorised as posing a “residual risk”.
Meanwhile, fourteen locations are still being searched in connection with the attack and 11 men remain in custody on suspicion of terror offences.
A Greater Manchester Police statement said: “We have made significant progress in this fast moving and complex investigation working with the national counter terrorism policing network and UK intelligence partners and securing the arrests of 11 people who remain in custody.
