Since the bloody bombing at a Manchester concert on May 22, a great deal of information has come to light about the perpetrator, Salman Abedi, some of which may suggest parallels to the case of the most recent attacks in London. Dominic Green writes:

Abedi was not a “lone wolf” who had “self-radicalized” on the Internet or been “inspired” by Islamic State (IS). . . . France’s interior minister, Gérard Collomb, announced that Abedi had “proven” links to IS, and that British and French intelligence services had information that he had been in Syria in 2015. . . Just after the bombing, one of Abedi’s friends told the Times of London that Abedi had left for Libya “three weeks ago” and returned “recently, like three days ago.” . . .

In some respects, Abedi has the background of a typical Euro-jihadist. The son of immigrants, he dropped out of college and into adolescent criminality before sinking further into the redemptive fantasies of Islamist violence. . . . [But] Abedi grew up with Islamic “radicalism” and was always known to the authorities. He was born in Manchester in 1994, to parents who had sought asylum from [Muammar] Qaddafi’s Libya. His father Ramadan Abedi . . . sought sanctuary in Britain because he was an Islamist, and thus an enemy of Qaddafi. The British authorities granted asylum because Qaddafi [at the time] was Britain’s enemy too. . . . [The elder Abedi] was also a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The LIFG was founded in 1995 by Abdelhakim Belhadj and other Libyan mujahedeen who had fought the Russians in Afghanistan and wanted to overthrow Qaddafi and create an Islamic state in Libya. Its personnel and ideology overlapped with those of other Sunni Islamist groups, notably the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and latterly the group Ansar al-Sharia, which took part in the deadly 2012 sacking of the U.S. installation in Benghazi.

Similarly, Green writes elsewhere, Saturday night’s assault, perpetrated as it was by three people, “cannot be the work of a ‘lone wolf’ or a ‘misfit’” but must be that of “an organized, collaborative unit.” How, asks Green, did the cell avoid detection and “what if, as in the case of Salman Abedi (the Manchester bomber) the trail leads abroad”?

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.