One city, two worlds

Disaffected youths
Zack Hanif, 32, says there’s very little the young can do in Beeston, where a youth center only opened two years ago.

Police raided the Hamara youth center Thursday where Beeston’s two bombers — Shahzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussein, 18 - went frequently. Another bomber, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, worked there. In all, four bombers blew themselves up on three subway trains and a bus during morning rush hour in London, killing at least 55 people, including the attackers.

Beeston, said Hanif, is one of the most deprived areas in Leeds: “One of the bottom three.”

“So you can imagine there are a lot of disaffected and bored youths,” he said trying to analyze why two of its young men — Britons of Pakistani descent — were driven to carrying out the London attacks, the first suicide operation in Western Europe.

He describes his own youth to prove his point.

When he was in his teens, Hanif quit school and “went into crime, selling hard drugs — class A drugs — that’s heroin,” he said as he rolled a marijuana joint on a street less than 50 yards from a group of policemen cordoning off a block of streets in Beeston as they searched the area for evidence of the London bombings.

To support his drug habit, Hanif stole and robbed. He spent two years in jail. When he came out, he continued taking and dealing drugs and only stopped when his mother died.

“I imagined she’d see me from Heaven,” said Hanif, as he took a long drag from his joint.

Now, with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s global appeal to wage jihad — or holy war — against the West, the attention of some youths may have turned to more extremist matters, said Hanif. Since the first Gulf War in 1990-91 when militant Islam started taking root, anger against Western policies has been felt in his community.

But no one, he said, had ever approached him or tried to indoctrinate him.

'Someone brainwashed them'
Amer, 20, and his brothers said they had not been approached by militant recruiters either, even though they live only a few blocks from Tanweer’s affluent home in Beeston.

“We think it’s political and nothing to do with religion,” said Amer. “Someone brainwashed them.”

Why did Tanweer and Hussein apparently fall prey to the recruiters while the brothers did not?

“Because they are nice and agreed to listen to them, thinking they might be right,” he said.

A community worker who worked closely with the Hamara youth center said their project dealt with young dropouts or unemployed — people on the fringes of society.

The worker, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said a few years ago, Beeston was regarded as a heroin gateway. The community had been able to clean up to a large extent. He said several of the suspects connected to the bombings used to gather there, sit together and talk.

MORE FROM ATTACK ON LONDON

Britain bars radical Muslim cleric reentry

Britain bars radical Muslim cleric reentry U.K. police chief fears strike in financial district Britain may set up secretive courts Map: Where the attacks happened Interactive: The alleged bombers   Add Attack on London headlines to your news reader: