Under the minarets of London

This is the most surprising thing - outwardly they were no different from ordinary Englishmen. The police carefully examined the videos of "loyal al-Qaeda soldiers" and the results of the viewing only confirmed the definition given to these people by the scathing British tabloids - "local suicide bombers". Here on the cassette two people in a cheerful company are kayaking along the mountain rivers of Wales. Laughing, waving oars. And a month later, on July 7, they blew themselves and 52 other people to shreds.

This is what the characters usually looked like in a TV report about a police round-up that was staged on suspects in the second series of explosions. Two of them—half-dressed, frightened and confused—stood on the balcony of their North Kensington apartment, wincing at the tear gas. A floor below, a couple of small children were tramping about on the balcony, scared to death of a policeman with a dog at the entrance.

The perpetrators of the second series of the London bombings are on trial in London. On July 21, they failed four explosions: the detonators worked, but the bombs did not. The accused and several dozen of their accomplices were quickly identified thanks to the operational work of the police and the television surveillance system, which covers the entire center of London. This reassured the public. But not completely—there was clearly someone behind both terrorist cells; someone recruited these people, instructed and armed. And how many more?

In fact, it has not yet been proven that these two cells were connected. The first attacks were carried out by Britons of Pakistani origin, the second explosions were prepared by people from North Africa. In connection with the latter case, investigators became interested in a mosque in Finsbury Park, one of the districts of London, where, since 1996, Imam Abu Hamza al-Masri had denounced the West. He was blind in one eye, instead of hands he had prostheses, he said that he had been wounded in Afghanistan. His sermons were especially listened to by the "shoe terrorist" Richard Reid and Zakaria Moussavi, accused of organizing the September 11 attacks in New York. In May 2004, Abu Hamza was arrested and charged with various crimes, including incitement to murder.

Representatives of the British and American counterterrorism services secretly told Newsweek that the recent bombings could lead to Abu Hamza's loyal listeners. Richard Reid, for example, knew at least one of the July 21 group. And Abu Hamza's chief aide, British-Indian Harun Rashid Aswat, is suspected by the US to have been trying to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

Omar Bakri Mohammed preached in the same mosque in Finsbury Park. He also headed the (recently banned) al-Muhajirun organization, which included one of the suspects in the 21 July bombings. There is nothing more against him, although there is talk of prosecution for statements: Bakri openly stated in one interview that he would not have reported the attacks in advance, even if he had known.

Going on vacation, Prime Minister Tony Blair called for the expulsion of those who campaign for terrorism from the country, and some in the cabinet even suggested trying such people for treason - this is the most serious crime in Britain from time immemorial, the death penalty for him was abolished only in 1998. True, Lord Carlisle, who has been tasked by the government with drafting new anti-terrorism laws, doubts that the treason law can be applied to Islamic radicals. But Omar Bakri considered it best to fly to Lebanon, although this law does not apply to him at all - he is not a British subject.

In Britain, it is now not only fiery imams who are afraid. The country's Muslim Council, which brings together some 400 Islamic organizations, says that since the London bombings, sectarian hate crimes have risen - since the beginning of July, their number has exceeded a thousand. Usually they desecrate mosques or simply swear. But it happened that a woman in a hijab was kicked out of the bus—suddenly a terrorist. “The government's policy is exacerbating the situation,” said Daoud Abdullah, deputy chairman of the council. “Tony Blair's proposals are contrary to European human rights law, and the persecution of organizations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir does not work. We all remember the example of Turkey, where they already tried to ban Islamic organizations, and what did this lead to? They have become even more popular!”

The British police, meanwhile, are working with their sleeves rolled up. A dozen foreigners have been detained “for national security purposes” and will soon be deported. Especially for this, an agreement was concluded with Jordan that the deportees would not be judged or tortured there—otherwise, according to British law, they cannot be expelled. In the same way, they are trying to negotiate with other Arab states. True, Omar Bakri was not lucky - he himself left, and when he came to the Beirut studio to give an interview, his native police arrested him.

Indeed, while the trail of London terrorists clearly leads to Finsbury Park, some of them turned out to have nothing to do with thugs like Ibrahim or misfits like Reid. For example, the “hero” of July 7, Mohammed Sidique Khan, worked in Leeds as a school laboratory assistant and was, according to neighbors, a born leader—such a versatility. Almost everyone praises that he took care of everyone, built two gyms for local teenagers, worked with "difficult" primary school students, and for all this he was awarded a trip to parliament. “If these people have succeeded in dragging Khan himself into their dirty work, then they are able to win anyone over to their side,” says Khurshid Drabu, a consultant assigned to the Khan family by the Muslim Council of Britain. “That's what's scary.”

One of Khan's old friends believes that the change in the life of a laboratory assistant began in 1999, when a Jamaican Islamic preacher known as Abdullah el Faisal, a jihad warrior and assistant to Abu Hamza, arrived in Leeds. (In 2003, a British court charged him with incitement to murder and sentenced him to 9 years in prison.) Around the time of the American invasion of Iraq, Khan began to drift away from old friends and spend more and more time with two of the teenagers he time was brought from the street to the gym by Hasib Husain and Shahzad Tanvir. Last November, Khan flew to Pakistan with Tanveer for three months. When he returned, he quit his school job, moved his family (wife, a Muslim Indian, and their newborn daughter) to another city—Dewsbury, Aswat's hometown, as it now turned out—and left them there. Five months later Khan blew himself up in London along with three new comrades.

Such a sharp break with the old environment is a characteristic sign of al-Qaeda recruitment. Former Saudi intelligence chief and now ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faysal, who has long been at war with al-Qaeda, says that recruiters contact a candidate only after they carefully study his lifestyle and environment. “After that, they begin to process him,” says Prince Turki. “They express their admiration for him and invite him for a cup of tea or coffee. They tell him about jihad and praise the ideas of some sheikh. After several such meetings, they offer to introduce him to the sheikh. From that moment on, they begin to hint to him that he needs to be careful and not tell anyone, especially family members.” And in the end they ask the “recruit” to commit a crime in order to prove his loyalty to the goals of jihad.

Perhaps the British police are in for a big surprise - suspects in custody can be surprisingly talkative. It is believed that al-Qaeda agents are well briefed on how to behave under interrogation. With regard to the "brigadiers" this is most likely true; but ordinary soldiers, in the words of Prince Turki, easily "split"—it is enough to give them some encouragement. They are afraid of the conclusion and want the usual - English - life.