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CLOSING THE NET THE INVESTIGATION

Sunday Herald, The, Jul 17, 2005 by JAMES CUSICK IN LEEDS

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It is now known that the four bombers boarded a Thameslink train from Luton, which reached King's Cross. Hussain had travelled to Luton in a car hired by one of his friends, Shehzad Tanweer, a 22- year-old from Colwyn Road in Beeston, Leeds. The other passenger in the car was Mohammed Sidique Khan, a 30-year-old teacher's assistant, also from the Beeston area.

Tanweer's bomb was detonated on the train at Aldgate; the contents of Khan's rucksack exploded on the train at Edgware Road. The identities of all the bombers were found in documents, driving licences and credit cards, discovered at the explosions. There was no attempt to hide their identities.

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Khan had recently moved to the Lees Holm district of Dewsbury. He was married with a young baby, although neighbours talked of the marriage having broken down and the couple recently separating. His wife Hasina, who learned she was pregnant with their second child at the time of the separation, also works in education. For the past three years, Khan had been a classroom assistant at Hillside Primary in Leeds.

Parents who knew his work in the school offered only praise.

Khan had spoken to the Times Educational Supplement about his work and about the need for government money to help regenerate the run-down suburb of Beeston. He had been part of a delegation to the House of Commons last year to meet the International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn. Khan also helped run an Islamic bookshop, the Iqra Learning Centre, that was also regularly visited by Hussain and Tanweer. Blue police tape still surrounds the bookshop as the investigation scours every avenue in the city that could offer new insight.

Near the bookshop a group of residents talk of "going home" saying that if there is another suicide attack in Britain their lives will become unbearable. "Home, " one explains, is Pakistan.

Then he corrects himself. "Actually I was born here. So this is my home, only it's not."

Of all the bombers Khan was the oldest and most travelled. Neighbours who said they knew him talked of regular trips to Pakistan. Others mentioned trips to Afghanistan. Khan is also believed to have "offered help and guidance" (according to one neighbour) at the Hamara centre. Both Hussain and Tanweer are said to have regularly met with Khan there. According to one of Tanweer's friends, a student at Bradford University, Khan was a father-figure at the youth project.

Tanweer, 22, lived a few hundred yards from Hussain. He had a sports science diploma from Leeds Metropolitan University and came from a respected family in the Beeston area who ran a local fish and chip shop in Colwyn Road. Like Hussain, he was said to be religious. Although described as quiet, and holding a passion for cricket and football, he had been in trouble with the police last year, arrested for disorderly conduct and cautioned.

The incident and the family pressure it brought may have influenced Tanweer's decision to return to Pakistan for the second time in two years to enrol at a madrassa study centre. But nobody locally seems to have noticed any changed in Tanweer on his return. However, one neighbour in a street close to Colwyn Road claimed "We are saying this, that everything is a surprise, that it cannot be right. But this has happened. And if we didn't notice, then there are hundreds of others who won't be noticed, hundreds of other young men just like these.

CLOSING THE NET THE INVESTIGATION

Sunday Herald, The, Jul 17, 2005 by JAMES CUSICK IN LEEDS

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