Open question: How long will we continue to be this stupid?
The father of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi has said son is innocent, and has confirmed police have arrested another of his sons.
Abedi killed 22 people and injured at least 119 more when he detonated a bomb on Monday night as children were piling out of the venue having watched Ariana Grande.
But talking from Tripoli in Libya today, his father Ramadan Abedi insisted: 'We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us.'
Sure. It's just a matter of how you define "innocents" or "terrorism" or "taqiya".
A former Libyan security official says the father of the alleged Manchester arena bomber was allegedly a member of a former al Qaeda-backed group in Libya.
Former Libyan security official Abdel-Basit Haroun said Wednesday he personally knew Ramadan Abedi, the father of Salman Abedi, and that the elder Abedi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting group in the 1990s. The group had links to al Qaeda.
Although the LIFG disbanded, Haroun says the father belongs to the Salafi Jihadi movement, the most extreme sect of Salafism and from which al Qaeda and the Islamic State group hail.
Haroun says Abedi, also known as Abu Ismail, had returned to the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
Ramadan Abedi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Tripoli that his family "aren't the ones who blow up ourselves among innocents."
How long will the free world continue to nurture these vipers in their bosom? How many times must the scorpion sting the frog before it gets wise to the game. The scorpion will always sting. The viper will always bite.
It's in its nature.
The guy who likes to read this might want to remember it next time he's meeting with a PLO leader or the Saudis.
On her way to work one morning
Down the path alongside the lake
A tender-hearted woman saw a poor half-frozen snake
His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew
"Oh well," she cried, "I'll take you in and I'll take care of you"
Now she clutched him to her bosom, "You're so beautiful," she cried
"But if I hadn't brought you in by now you might have died"
Now she stroked his pretty skin and then she kissed and held him tight
But instead of saying thanks, that snake gave her a vicious bite