Forensic officers at Liverpool Women's hospital on Tuesday. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

"He first came to the cathedral in August 2015 and wanted to convert to Christianity. He took an Alpha course, which explains the Christian faith, and completed it in November of that year."

"That enabled him to come to an informed decision and he changed from Islam to Christianity and was confirmed as a Christian by at least March 2017, just before he came to live with us."

"He was destitute at that time and we took him in."

Christian volunteer Malcolm Hitchcott, Liverpool.

 

"[Searches are under way at the Rutland Avenue address and a second address in Sutcliffe Street, where al-Swealmeen previously lived, and where] significant items [had been recovered]."

"We continue to appeal for any information about this incident and now that we have released his name any information that the public may have about al-Swealmeen, no matter how small, may be of great assistance to us."

Counter Terrorism Policing North West

He had converted to Christianity, at a cathedral hard by a Liverpool maternity hospital, where he was blown to smithereens, ostensibly in a premature explosion of his own suicide-plan explosives. He had arrived in the United Kingdom from Iraq, an asylum seeker, and at age 32 decided, it would appear, that the asylum and his conversion were not really what he wanted out of life. What he wanted, it seems, was an honourable death-by-martyrdom as a jihadist through a terrorist attack on those who had taken him in.

 

The explosive device he was carrying, seated in the back of a taxi detonated outside Liverpool Women's Hospital on Remembrance Sunday. He was to have been dropped off at the hospital after the taxi picked him up at what the police now suspect was his 'bomb factory' in the Sefton area of Liverpool. Police feel it to have been more likely that his penultimate destination was the Liverpool Cathedral where he was confirmed in 2017.

 

Hundreds of people, along with military veterans and civic dignitaries had gathered for a Remembrance Sunday service at the cathedral. There is much speculation but though police have announced this to have been an act of terrorism, the motivation is not yet clear,while it might seem obvious to some. It is debatable whether he remained a 'practising' Christian, or had returned to his original Islamic faith by the time he planned his act of terrorism.

Clearly, showing up armed for a suicide attack indicates he planned to take as many lives as possible among those who had gathered for the Remembrance Day ceremony. It was  his ill fortune and a heavenly host that denied him his martyrdom plan when his explosives blew up prematurely, denying him the celebrity he obviously sought.

What his act did succeed in producing was the terror threat in the U.K. whose level was 'substantial' being raised to 'severe' indicating that another attack may be likely to occur, just weeks following the murder of a Conservative Member of Parliament in Essex, in another terrorist stabbing death. Britons, declared their prime minister would never be "cowed by terrorism".

"We will never give in to those who seek to divide us with senseless acts of violence", said Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Concern over a possible Christmas bombing campaign, warned a former counter-terror chief, could conceivably be behind raising the threat level to severe. "It is almost certainly linked to Christmas. This could be the first of several. It is hard to believe it is a one-off", the former Scotland Yard commander stated.

A security source ventured that the explosive device was likely built with the use of Triacetone triperoxide, the substance used in the Manchester Arena suicide bomb that took place in 2017. The thinking is that the man inexpertly triggered the explosion when he tried to connect the detonator to the charge.

A photo of Emad al-Swealmeen posted on Hitchcott’s Facebook. Photograph: Malcolm Hitchcott/Facebook