Britain faces 'the enemy within'

They now say three of the suspects drove from Leeds to Luton early on Thursday, where they met a fourth suspect. Closed-circuit television footage shows the four arriving at King's Cross station shortly before 8:30 a.m., looking calm and carrying large rucksacks. The three underground bombings all happened within 1 minute of each other on direct subway lines out of King's Cross. The fourth tore apart a bus nearly an hour later, less than a mile from the station. Police say they have forensic evidence and personal documents pinning down the alleged culprits.

Though the four are now believed to be dead, copycat acts are feared. "If four or five guys dreamed this up, it's likely that others are dreaming it up, too," says Simon Sole, a former intelligence officer and expert in Islamic radicalism.

Analysts say the likelihood that the quartet were Britons dramatically alters the cultural context of the attacks.

"It would have been much more palatable if they had been radical bombers who came to the UK for the operation," says Bob Ayers, a security expert at London's Chatham House think tank and a former counterintelligence officer. "Because they were British nationals born in UK, they were striking against their own society. That's traumatic to digest."

Suddenly, great attention has been given to the motives of the quartet, dubbed the "suicide bombers of suburbia" by the British press.

Friends and relatives of the suspects have painted a picture of ordinary young men, one a sports-loving student, another a teacher with a young family, a third a loner who discovered religion.

The area they come from near Leeds is not upscale but not destitute. These people "lead humdrum lives and they want adventure and there's a legitimizing framework for them in the form of radical teachers," says Mr. Sole, who serves as managing director for London's Executive Analysis consultancy.

British officials have made strong alliances with moderate Muslims to appease the community and get closer to its radical fringes. But Muslim leaders, who have condemned the attacks and vowed to root out radicalism, say the government could help by recognizing the disenchantment of a community generally blighted by unemployment and social exclusion, and disillusioned by Britain's attachment to the US strategy in the war on terror.

Though they stress this is no excuse for terrorism, they feel that more effort should be spent building bridges at home rather than pursuing campaigns like the Iraq war.

"We need to really look at some of the causes which could feed into these feelings, the disadvantages and discriminations," says Mohammed Anwar, an expert in race relations at Warwick University. "The government and the institutions of our society could help in this."

About 100 race attacks have already been reported on Muslim targets in less than a week.

"We need to be careful not to label the whole community," says Mr. Anwar.

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