“THE day began unsettled, with heavy showers in places,” begins the government report into the July 7 bombings. But the cloudy weather could not fully extinguish Londoners’ sense of euphoria at having just won the 2012 Olympics.
As the city slept, at 3.58am a CCTV camera recorded a hired, light-blue Nissan Micra travelling along Hyde Park Road, Leeds, making its way to the M1. There was no reason for the innocuous little saloon car to arouse suspicion, but it contained the seeds of terror planted years before and now grown to full fruit.
Shehzad Tanweer, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay proved that, to the misguidedly determined, innocent lives are cheap.
The official Home Office report published yesterday revealed that their frighteningly amateurish operation was put together for a mere £8,000. It was an operation funded by the trappings of the West. Lindsay took out bank loans, bounced cheques and became involved in a scam involving selling perfume on the internet to buy bomb-making equipment.
No great expertise was required thereafter to construct four bombs each containing between 2kg (4lb 7oz)and 5kg of explosive. Their factory, in an unprepossessing house in Alexandra Grove, Leeds, would have given the game away had anyone been alert. Powerful fumes from the chemicals forced them to work with the windows open, but with net curtains taped to the walls to screen them from prying eyes.
Both Tanweer and Lindsay bought facemasks on the internet. They needed them because the fumes were so pungent — when the police discovered the factory, they found that the poisonous vapours had killed the tops of plants just outside the windows. It took officers several weeks to examine the remains of the explosives because of their toxic effects.
At some stage the terrorists must have tested their concoction, but to this day no trace has been found.
The bombers did all this under the eyes of their families, who suspected nothing.
When the relatives of two of the plotters wondered why their the hair of their sons had become bleached over a period of weeks, they blamed chlorine from a swimming pool. Police found shower caps at the bombmaking scene, but these were clearly not effective enough.
Even in their last hours, the pretence was maintained. The last time that Hussain’s mother saw him, he was in his pyjamas eating a bowl of cereal. He was going to London, he told her, but the trip had been put back because their car had broken down. All four were outwardly unexceptional members of the Muslim community of Holbeck, on the outskirts of Leeds, second-generation British citizens whose parents had left Pakistan for Yorkshire.
There was little to mark out any of the trio as candidates for extremist behaviour. But, as is now known, their DNA would link them to the Alexandra Grove bomb factory.
When they set off for London, Tanweer drove the Nissan south, stopping for petrol at the M1 service station at Woodall, near Sheffield, where he was again recorded on camera as he paid for the fuel. Their destination was the car park at Luton railway station, and a rendezvous with Jermaine Lindsay, already in position in his red Fiat Brava.
Lindsay, aged 19 at the time, had been influenced by the Jamaican-born extremist preacher Abdallah al-Faisal, now in jail. Lindsay, also Jamaican-born, had attended at least one lecture by al-Faisal, had listened to tapes of other lectures by him, and had been disciplined at school for handing out leaflets in support of al-Qaeda.
Soon after his mother converted to Islam, in 2000, Lindsay followed suit.
The four knew each other long before the Luton rendezvous. Lindsay was the outsider, but had made contact with the other three at least a year before they hatched the bomb plot.
Khan, who at 30 was the oldest of the group, appears to have been the ringleader. He had become a role model for young Muslims in Leeds through his community work. But the report reveals for the first time that as a terrorist he modelled himself on a young Briton killed during the US bombing of Tora Bora in Eastern Afghanistan in 2001. Like Khan the unnamed terrorist had been married with children, and Khan used the dead man’s will as a template for his own, which was discovered by police after the bombings.
He was remembered at school as quiet, studious and sometimes bullied. Associates claim that he flirted with alcohol and drugs but, after an incident in a nightclub, he turned to religion and it changed his life. He studied at Leeds Metropolitan University, married and had a daughter, and embarked on a seemingly successful career as a learning mentor in local schools. The job ended after his employers queried his extended sick leave, but he continued to be active in youth and community work.
Even during this time he was already training for martydom. In 2003 he went to Pakistan, when he is believed to have met senior al-Qaeda figures. At some stage he had recorded a chilling video message that was released after his death. Yesterday it was significant that nowhere in the thousands of official words released did it say how it had come to be broadcast on Arabic television after the bombers were dead.
By contrast Hussain was no academic high-achiever, but he left school with a clutch of modest GCSEs and completed a college course in business studies. But it is known that, even at school, he was open in his support for al-Qaeda, regarding the September 11 hijackers as martyrs and writing “al-Qaeda no limits” on his school religious education textbook.
He and his family went on a haj to Saudi Arabia in 2002, after which he took to wearing traditional Muslim clothing, and told his school teacher that he wished to become a cleric. He began to sit up until the early hours, reading religious texts and praying. He was cautioned for shoplifting in Leeds city centre, but otherwise had not been in trouble with the police.
Tanweer by contrast is said to have taken religion seriously from an early age but not shown any signs of extremism. In fact, he seemed to relish the trappings of the West. He drove a red Mercedes bought for him by his doting father, who hoped to set him up in business. He liked fashionable clothes and fashionable hairstyles.
At school he was regarded as calm, friendly and modest, a gifted sportsman who played for a local cricket team. But religion began to exercise a greater grip on his life. He left Leeds Metropolitan University before completing a degree in sports science to work part time in his father’s fish and chip shop.
In the months before the bombings Khan, Tanweer and Hussain were increasingly seen spending time together around the mosques, Islamic bookshops and Muslim gyms — one was known as “the al-Qaeda gym” — and social clubs of the Beeston area.
Khan was a leading figure on the scene, someone young Muslims looked up to and to whom he gave talks. Some say that he advocated clean living, avoiding crime and pursuing sport; others say that he was an aggressive preacher of extremist views. Whatever message he delivered in public, he was sufficiently woven into the fabric of Beeston’s Islamic society to spot potential recruits to an evil cause without arousing suspicion.
Khan understood bonding. He was instrumental in arranging camping, canoeing, white water rafting, paintballing and other group activities, perfect opportunities for indoctrination or for assessing the physical fitness of potential footsoldiers. Khan and Tanweer attended a camping trip with others in April 2003, and went whitewater rafting only weeks before the bombings. How much was plotted on these excursions remains unknown.
Meanwhile, three of the four plotters had been revisiting their ethnic roots in Pakistan. Khan and Tanweer went there between November 2004 and February 2005; the older man was supposedly helping the younger to find a suitable Islamic school at which Tanweer might study. Tanweer told his family that they were checking out a school near Lahore.
Whom they met upcountryntirely possible that they had contact with important al-Qaeda figures. Khan is likely to have known who they were; he is believed to have had some relevant training in a remote region during a two-week visit in July 2003 but details are, to say the least, hazy. Tanweer and Hussain had visited Pakistan with their families, but there is nothing unusual in that. There were nearly 400,000 visits by British residents to Pakistan in 2004, averaging 41 days. A small minority of those will have slipped into Afghanistan.
Lindsay, the outsider, claimed to have visited Pakistan, but there is nothing to corroborate what may have been a bout of wishful thinking; the only country he is known to have been to is Jamaica.
Between April and July 2005, the weeks before the bombings, the four men were in contact with Pakistan. Whom they were talking to is unknown, but the lengths to which they went to conceal the identity of the person or persons make the contacts look suspicious.
At 7.21am on July 7, as London stirred itself awake, the four casually dressed young men were seen on a CCTV camera heading for the Thameslink platform at Luton station. Each one carried a rucksack that appeared to be heavy.
At 8.26 they were filmed arriving at King’s Cross and heading for the Underground. They still aroused no suspicion; they were seen hugging and appeared happy, even euphoric. Then the group split up, each to his own murderous mission.
At 8.51 an eastbound Circle Line train pulled out of Liverpool Street station heading for Aldgate when there was a loud blast, and smoke billowed from the tunnel back into the station. The bomb killed eight people including Tanweer, sitting in the second carriage with his rucksack next to him on the floor. A further 171 were injured.
At 8.55 Hussain walked out of King’s Cross station and tried to contact the other bombers on his mobile phone, without success.
At 8.56 Lindsay was in the first carriage of a crowded Piccadilly Line train in the deep tunnel between King’s Cross and Russell Square when his bomb detonated — 27 people, including Lindsay, were killed, and more than 340 injured.
At 9.17 Khan was seated in the second carriage of a District Line train at Edgware Road station, his rucksack on the floor. Survivors reported that he had been fiddling with it. When it detonated it killed seven people, including Khan, and injured 163.
Hussain, meanwhile, strolled back into King’s Cross station and bought a 9v battery at W H Smith, strolling out again to spend ten minutes in a McDonald’s in Euston Road. He boarded a No 91 bus heading the short distance to Euston, nervously pushing past other passengers.
At Euston he changed to an eastbound No 30 bus, already crowded because of the chaos caused by Underground closures. He climbed to the upper deck, found a seat and placed his rucksack on the floor beside him.
At 9.47, as the bus reached the corner of Upper Woburn Place and Tavistock Square, an explosion ripped its top off, killing 14 people, including Hussain, and injuring 110.
Before the bombings Khan made a video, broadcast on al-Jazeera Arabic television channel. In it, he said: “Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters.”
His stance, and that of his fellow suicide bombers, cost the lives of 52 Londoners.
THE FOUR SUICIDE BOMBERS
HASIB HUSSAIN, 18,
TAVISTOCK SQUARE BUS BOMBER
Hussain rejected the teenage uniform of jeans and T-shirts for traditional clothing topped by a prayer cap. He made no bones about his views, praising the 9/11 bombers as martyrs and telling one of his teachers that when he grew up he planned to become a Muslim cleric.
Late in 2004 he suddenly switched back to Western clothing — perhaps as a first preparation for the mission to come
JERMAINE LINDSAY, 19,
RUSSELL SQUARE BOMBER
Lindsay was the odd man out — Jamaican by birth and a convert to Islam while at school. His teachers complained that he was running with troublemakers and he was disciplined for handing out leaflets supporting al-Qaeda.
Late in 2002 he married a white British convert to Islam. A child was born in April 2004. Lindsay started work as a carpet fitter but by the time of the bombings he was unemployed again. His wife was pregnant with their second child.
MOHAMMAD SIDIQUE KHAN, 30,
EDGWARE ROAD BOMBER
Known as “Sid” to his friends, he made little secret of his strong religious beliefs but when al-Qaeda committed the 9/11 attacks he was quick to condemn them.
Five years later the highly respected schoolworker had become a more devout Muslim, a globe-trotting organiser of terrorism and the leader of the 7/7 bombers. By 2002 teachers were seeing the first signs of “a subtle change in his character”
SHEHZAD TANWEER, 22,
ALDGATE BOMBER
Tanweer seemed the perfect example of the new generation of young British Asians.The son of a highly successful local businessman in Beeston, he had been promised his own business.
But by 2002 religion had become the centre of his life. His decision a year later not to finish his university course was a sign that his interests had changed. He devoted himself to religious study but neither family nor friends say they saw any sign that he had become an extremist
