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Police were tipped off by members of the Muslim community that Salman Abedi was a dangerous extremist.

Two members of the public called a special anti-terrorist hotline to report the ISIS killer’s horrific views.

One community worker – who asked not to be identified – said two people who knew Abedi at college made separate calls to the police begging them to take action.

He said: “All of the publicity is about Muslims not coming forward and this shows that they are coming forward and expressing their concerns.”

Both callers said they had been worried that “he was supporting terrorism” and had expressed the view that “being a suicide bomber was OK.”

(Image: Handout) (Image: Daily Mirror)

The calls are thought to have been made around five years ago.

It’s still unclear whether police acted on the tip-offs.

Last night it also emerged that Abedi’s own family warned British authorities they feared he was dangerous.

US intelligence officials said they had been told relatives contacted officials to express their concerns.

Last night both his dad Ramadan and brother Hashem were arrested by Libyan Police in Tripoli.

It’s believed they had been contacted by the British authorities asking for their help.

Last night Libyan security forces claimed Hashem ‘was aware of all the details’ of Salman’s plans.

Before he was taken in for questioning Ramadan gave several interviews claiming his son Salman was innocent and not responsible for Monday’s horrific attack.

He said: “Until now my son is a suspect, and the authorities haven’t come up with a final conclusion.

“Every father knows his son and his thoughts, my son does not have extremist thoughts.”

He said he had only spoken to his son last week to discuss meeting up soon.

But a family friend disputed this and said that Salman’s father had recently hid his passport to try and stop him returning to the UK.

However the suicide bomber convinced his father that he was going on a trip to Saudi Arabia - before flying to Britain to launch his barbaric attack.

The friend said: “Ramadan hid their passports but Salman apparently asked for his back saying he wanted to go to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage.

“But instead he went back to the UK for the bombing.”

(Image: SWNS - Leeds SWNS.com)

The Mirror has established how evil Salman had flown to Libya with his ISIS supporting brother Hashem.

And we have uncovered evidence online linking Hashem, 20, to extremist views.

In one post, he expresses admiration for so-called Islamic State fighters, commenting under a picture of a procession of vehicles carrying black IS flags.

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Under another picture of IS fighters chopping off a man’s hand, he wrote: “This is a punishment prescribed by Allah, you idiot”.

Today, it emerged that Ramadan, also known as Abu Ismail, was a member of the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was banned in the UK in 2005.

Abdel Wahab Gaydi, former member of LIFG group and a former member of the Libyan General National Congress, told the Mirror: “Ramadan was a member of the LIFG group but we never were close”.

(Image: SWNS.com)

Ramadan worked for the Libyan security service until 1991, when he fled the country and went to Saudi Arabia.

It was claimed that he joined LIFG in 1994, after moving to Manchester and starting a family with his wife Samia.

He was a regular at Didsbury Mosque where he led the call to prayers. The mosque follows the hardline conservative Salafi version of Islam.

(Image: Instagram)

There were a number of LIFG members living in the same area of south Manchester as the Abedi family.

One, Abd al-Baset Azzouz, a father of four from Manchester, left Britain to run a terrorist network in Libya overseen by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor as leader of al-Qaeda.

Another man, Salah Aboaoba, said in 2011 that he had been fund-raising for LIFG at Didsbury Mosque, the same one attended by Abedi, but the mosque denied the claim.

It was reported today that the Abedi family returned to Libya in 2008 and renounced membership of LIFG and extremism.

But he is understood to have remained supportive of the Islamic Groups battling to control Libya in the chaos that has engulfed the country after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.

And the Mirror also spoke to one of Abedi’s closest friends at school.

(Image: @SparkleMax15 /Twitter)

He asked to remain anonymous but gave an extraordinary insight into the mindset of the terrorist.

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He sat next to him for two years during his media class at the Burnage Media Arts College now called Burnage Academy for Boys.

He recalled: “On school holidays he went to Libya and he joined the forces to fight Colonel Gaddafi.

(Image: Facebook)

“He hated that man.

“He once told me how he wanted to kill him - and kill him with his own bare hands.

“It was animalistic.

“I used to be his friend on Facebook and I can vividly remember him posting pictures of himself brandishing weapons.

“He talked about Libya all the time.”

(Image: Getty)

And he revealed Abedi was a heavy cannabis user between lessons.

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The pal said: “He was a weed smoker - he was one of the four or five in the school that would smoke weed and cigarettes every day.

“They used to hide behind a hall.

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“I remember he always wore his trousers really low so everyone could see his butt. And he was always joking about girls

“He always tried to portray this image as a type of hard gangster type - wearing a large silver chain but no-one was taken in.

“He really was off with the fairies some-times.

“I used to sit next to him in media studies and he was very nice when he wanted to be.

(Image: PA)

“But he had an insidious side to him.

“But he stopped talking to me when he overheard a conversation and realised I was Sufi.

“His face went mottled. He was shocked and be barely spoke to me again.

“He always asked for my help during the media class. We studied newspaper articles and how journalism worked.

“He seemed to enjoy it.”

(Image: REUTERS)

Dominic Grieve, who chaired the powerful Commons intelligence and security committee before Parliament was dissolved, said the security services face ‘difficult’ decisions about who to keep an eye on.

He said: “I appreciate questions are being raised about whether this man came to the attention of the security services earlier.

“That’s obviously going to be of interest in finding out exactly what happened. It’s very difficult for the security services if they do get such a reference to them - they have to make an assessment if this is someone who is actually likely to pose a risk or is actively getting involved in a terrorist network.

(Image: PA)

“The mere fact that a reference is made, doesn’t necessarily mean that several years down the line he would have to be a subject of interest.

“It all has to be, inevitably, prioritised in terms of where the security service sees the risk as being greatest.”

Mr Grieve also stressed that for a man with Libyan heritage to travel back to Libya does not necessarily mean they have terror links.

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“The family were as I understand it refugees from Gaddafi’s Libya,” he said.

“It’s not necessarily an indication of a link to Daesh extremism if somebody decides to go back to Libya, after the fall of Gaddafi, to visit relatives.

“The fact that he may have gone to Syria may be another matter. But in itself I would not necessarily infer that because somebody has a Libyan connection, it necessarily means they must be linked to terrorism.”