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Comment and Life

Turning ordinary people into suicide bombers

By Michael Bond

20 July 2005

ASK someone to sketch a personality profile of a typical suicide bomber and the chances are it would not come close to describing the four young men who, it seems, blew themselves up in London two weeks ago. Even from their friends and families the refrain has been, “I can’t believe he would have done such a thing – not him.” And when you look at who they were, it is hard to believe.

There was Mohammad Sidique Khan, father and teaching assistant, loved by the children he taught and well respected by his community; Hasib Hussain, the “nice lad” from…

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