Foreboding pervades Muslim community

A week after the bombings, Britain waits for the backlash

A week after the bombings, Britain waits for the backlash. And nowhere is the sense of anticipation and dread greater than in the southern suburbs of Leeds, whose Asian community has been accused of producing Britain's first four home-grown suicide bombers, writes Joe Humphreys in Leeds.

"There is going to be trouble. It's just a matter of when," said Ashley Ullah, a neighbour of Shahzad Tanweer, one of the four suspected terrorists. "It's like the calm before the storm."

Standing a few doors away from Tanweer's family home - a red brick terrace house in Beeston - Ullah was, like many people in the community, still reeling from the news that such extremists were in their midst.

"I knew them to say hello to. They were quite pleasant," Ullah said of Tanweer and Hasib Hussain, another suspected bomber who lived a few blocks away. "It's unbelievable. They were just ordinary people. But I think they must have got brainwashed somewhere along the line."

READ MORE

Youth worker Nadeem Siddique said one of his cousins met sports-loving Tanweer just a fortnight ago. "It's shocking to discover that someone who you played football with one week is caught up in something like this the next.

"There is an element of denial. I can't quite believe it is happening."

While he said there were some Muslim firebrands in the area, who were "radical to an extent, you would never suspect anyone of trying to recruit young people to commit something like this.

"In my own opinion you couldn't be in your right mind to do something like this, to blow yourself up."

Local politicians expressed some bewilderment at the discovery of terrorists on their doorstep. So too local religious leaders, who came together for a press conference in the city to appeal for calm.

"Now is the time for moderation, unity and sensitivity on all sides," said the Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds, Dr Arthur Roche.

A statement by Hanif Malik, representing the Leeds Muslim Community, said: "We as British Muslims recognise that such outrages [ as those in London] have no place in Islam or British society." Leeds has seen occasional inter-race riots, notably in 2001, and some locals claimed there were frequent running battles between "Asians and whites" in certain areas. They described as their greatest fear yesterday, however, the possibility of "outsiders" coming in to stir up trouble.

But life goes on as normal, or as normal as it will ever be after what Britons are calling "7/7".

Neighbours of Tanweer yesterday evening sheepishly emerged from their homes to put their bins out, before quickly retreating inside, ahead of collection day today.

Ullah, a 42-year-old second generation Pakistani, said: "I am just wary. I thought there might be trouble last night. Perhaps it will be tonight."