KIYOSHI OTA / NEWSTEAM STOPPED Hussain Osman, who fled from Shepherd's Bush, made it to his brother's flat in Rome but police found him through a mobile phone

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Posted Sunday, July 31, 2005; 14:24BST
According to Italian news reports, Osman has insisted to Italian authorities that any July 21 team had nothing to do with the one on July 7. He reportedly met Said at a gym and began discussing politics in a small group without any contact with al-Qaeda, except what they read on the Internet. He is reported to have said he watched videos supposedly showing U.S. atrocities in Iraq, and wanted to protest. British officials don't know if this is true, but are taking seriously the possibility of a self-starting cell. Shane Brighton, of the Royal United Services Institute in London, says "self-radicalization" is a growing concern. "If you already accept that there's a historic struggle between Muslims and the West and that the only resort is violence," he says, "you don't need to sit at the feet of an imam for months. You just need to watch the news to have your mind-set reconfirmed."

Those who have self-radicalized can then turn to "Google terror": using the Internet for bomb recipes, how-to videos and moral support — and thus slip beneath the radar of the security services. The July 21 suspects apparently found disaffection aplenty in Britain. Omar, who came to Britain as a dependent of his elder sister in 1992, had led a feral life in Mogadishu and was not prepared to cope well in the big city. Jamal Mohammed, who played football with Omar in London, told the Independent newspaper that Omar had said he used to hang out with militiamen in Mogadishu and was fascinated by their guns. "He said he had lived on the streets during the day, getting what food he could," said Mohammed. In London, Omar moved through a series of foster homes and attended Aylward secondary school in north London, which has a truancy rate three times the national average. A schoolmate said "he was quiet and picked upon and didn't have friends." By 18 he was declared a "vulnerable young adult" and put into a one-bedroom apartment on the ninth floor of a grim housing project called Curtis House in Enfield, north London.

The building has become home to a transient population of Afro-Caribbeans, Chinese, Poles, Somalis, Turks and homegrown Brits. The elevators stink of urine and used needles litter the stairways. Omar lived off state benefits worth at least $150 a week. "I never once saw him working," says Mohammed Hassan, owner of the nearby Billy's Food Shop. "He and his friend used to sit on the wall in the car park just down the road smoking cannabis." Omar once got angry at Hassan for selling liquor in his store. "He said I was a bad Muslim. I told him, 'Better than stealing.' When I worked at the shop across the road, he was caught stealing a can of tuna. I didn't like him."

At a Turkish grocery a few blocks from Curtis House, the owner's wife, Nursal, remembers once talking to Omar about a terrorist attack by al-Qaeda, saying it was terrible. "He said, 'Why? Those people [the victims] are killing Muslims.'" His classmate recalls that "he got religion three or four years ago and grew a beard. He changed. I think he was lonely."

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