Seems like investigators in the UK aren’t operating on the “lone wolf” theory in the attack on a British soldier by cleaver-wielding Muslims. Eight other people have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, although five of those have been bailed out and two more released:
Police are continuing to hold a 10th person in connection with the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich.
The 50-year-old man was arrested in Welling, south-east London on Monday, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. …
Of the eight other people arrested so far, five have been bailed and two released without charge.
The two actual murderers are recovering in a hospital after both being shot by police. Their recuperation doesn’t count toward the time limit in the UK on holding suspects before charging them with a crime, so investigators aren’t pressed for time to make a case — at least not yet.
However, they’re also not done looking for possible co-conspirators, either. They’re searching three London locations for more clues, according to the BBC, which makes this look like a fairly large operation rather than a couple of nuts who impulsively attacked Rigby. Like the Boston Marathon bombing case, it turns out that both suspects were known to security services — but unlike the Tsarnaevs, they both may have been recruitment targets by intelligence services:
It has emerged that Mr Adebolajo and Mr Adebowale were known to the security services, and the UK Foreign Office confirmed it had given consular assistance to suspect Mr Adebolajo when he was arrested in Kenya in 2010.
Mr Adebolajo’s childhood friend, Abu Nusaybah, also told BBC Newsnight that MI5 had once asked Mr Adebolajo to work for the agency, but that he had rejected the approach.
How did Adebolajo come to their attention? He was arrested in Kenya while trying to join an al-Qaeda linked terrorist group in Somalia three years ago:
A senior police official, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to press, said Tuesday they believe Muslim cleric Aboud Rogo Mohammed, who has since been killed, helped British citizen Michael Adebolajo in his attempt to travel to Somalia to wage jihad against the country’s U.N.-backed government.
Adebolajo was arrested with five other young men in November 2010 on a Kenyan island near Somalia, then set free. Adebolajo and another man are suspected of killing a British soldier who was run over with a car and then stabbed in London.
They’d better be keeping a close eye on those bailed-out suspects.
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