The suspected bombers: young, British and Muslim

Four people are suspected of being behind the bomb attacks in London last week.

Four people are suspected of being behind the bomb attacks in London last week.

Suspect: Shehzad Tanweer

(22) from Beeston, Leeds

In his bedroom at the terrace house he shared with his Pakistani parents and three siblings, Shehzad Tanweer proudly displayed the trophies he won at school for athletics. But by his early 20s the British-born Muslim had developed a passion for something else - Islamist extremism.

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In the months before he travelled to London to blow himself up on the Aldgate tube, Tanweer visited Pakistan to study the Koran and Arabic. The rigour of the intensive study seems to have been too tough, however.

"He came home after three months because he didn't like the people there," his uncle, Bashir Ahmed (64) said.

Despite this, the experience did not stop the jobless student, who was born in Bradford and moved to Leeds as a youngster, from continuing to immerse himself in radical Islam.

"When he came back he started going to the mosque five times a day," said Mr Ahmed. "He continued his studies in education, but there was nothing to show us that anything had changed. He was not a fanatic."

The day before Thursday's bombings, Tanweer, who lived with his father Muhammad Mumtaz and mother Parvaz Akhtar, saw his uncle. There was nothing to suggest what he was about to do.

"He was very calm. No one knew he was going to London." Mr Ahmed said the family were devastated by what Shehzad had done. "We are shattered. We are a very close family. We have lived around here for ages. We have lost everything, especially the respect we had in this community."

Suspect: Mohammad Sidique Khan (30) from Dewsbury

Born in Leeds, suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan spent his working life with young, vulnerable children.

The 30-year-old, father to a 14-month-old daughter, Maryam, was a mentor in primary schools for children with learning difficulties. Leeds city council and Kirklees metropolitan borough yesterday refused to disclose which schools Khan had taught at, but he is known to have taught hundreds of children.

"What he did is disgusting," said Noman Hansrot, a neighbour in Lees Holm, Dewsbury, where Khan lived with his wife, Hasina Patel.

Mr Hansrot said Khan was not a member of the local Darulilm mosque and yesterday its followers expressed horror at what he had done. "This is not an extreme place," Mr Hansrot said.

Khan was born in October 1974 at St James's hospital, Leeds. His father, Tika Khan, was born in Pakistan and worked in a foundry, and his mother was Mamida Begum.

The family is believed to have lived in Leeds before moving to Beeston, where Khan grew up and came into contact with the other suicide bombers. When his family moved to Nottingham, he stayed in Leeds to study. Like Shehzad Tanweer, Khan went to university in Leeds, where he met his partner, an Indian Muslim whose family lived in Dewsbury.

Khan turned his attentions to some of the most vulnerable children in primary schools. His wife was a neighbourhood environmental officer for the council's education department.

The home of his wife's mother, Farida Patel, of Dewsbury, was one of those raided on Monday. Her street remained cordoned off by police yesterday and Mrs Patel was living at an undisclosed address. It was a far cry from a year ago when Farida Patel travelled to London to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace, where she received an award for her work as a teacher specialising in bilingual studies.

Yesterday Mrs Patel disowned her son-in-law. "She told me Khan and her daughter were separated, she had nothing to do with him," said Khizir Iqbal, a friend and local councillor. "She is very upset. She feels her family name has been brought into all this.

"She is a very respected member of the community who has done so much to help people." Although Mrs Patel claimed the couple were separated, neighbours said they regularly saw Khan with his daughter after he and his wife moved into their flat in Lees Holm about eight months ago.

Suspect: Hasib Mir Hussain (18) from Holbeck, Leeds

When the 18-year-old went missing, his mother did what any concerned parent would do - she reported his disappearance to the police. It was this action that gave investigators the vital clue that led them to Leeds and the various properties which were raided yesterday. Hussain was reported missing by his mother at 10.20pm on Thursday after failing to return home from London. He had told his parents that he was going to the capital on the day of the bombings with friends.

The teenager lived with his family in the Leeds suburb of Holbeck, where a three-storey red-bricked terrace house in Colenso Mount was searched.

One neighbour said the family had lived in the house for more than 20 years. Born on September 16th, 1986, Hussain was enrolled at Ingram Road Nursery School just streets away from the family home, then went to Ingram Road Primary School. His senior school was Matthew Murray High School in Leeds, starting in September 1998 and leaving on July 20th, 2003. Hussain reportedly became very religious two years ago.

Hussain's driving licence and cash cards were found in the mangled wreckage of the number 30 bus, which blew up in Tavistock Square and caused 13 deaths.

Suspect: Not yet named

from Beeston, Leeds

Confusion continued to surround the identity of the fourth bomber believed to have blown himself up between King's Cross and Russell Square. A three-storey terraced house in the Beeston area of Leeds, which was the family home of three brothers, remained the centre of intense police activity last night.

Down the road an Islamic youth centre frequented by one of the British-born Pakistani brothers was yesterday sealed off by police as part of the inquiry.

A youth worker at the Leeds City Council-funded centre said it had been causing concern for some time because of fears that one of the staff was "radicalising and recruiting" young Muslim men.

"Rather than the mosque, this was the place that people went for radicalism," the worker, who did not want to be named, said. "One particular worker there had no programme with the young people, he was doing his own thing. He was drawing in young people and radicalising them."

It is still unclear which if any of the brothers is central to the police investigation. One is missing from his home and is thought to be in Paddington Green police station in west London. Last night, officers were granted a further three days to question him.

Born in Dewsbury, the brothers were abandoned by their father 20 years ago when he returned to Pakistan. They were brought up by their mother with their three sisters, but she also left them in their late teens. "Their mother took their three sisters and left them."

Local people said one of the brothers spent a great deal of time at the Hamara youth club in Lodge Lane, Beeston. Police yesterday sealed off the centre, its shutters were pulled down and the telephone was left unanswered.

Neighbours said the old family home was now empty of furniture and used as a meeting place late into the night for groups of five to six men. "There were comings and goings in that house all the time," the neighbour, who did not want to be named, said.

"Young men would turn up at the house and stay until 3am and hold meetings. Sometimes there were five or six of them, sometimes there were 10."