British converts to terror

Each morning, the rotund figure of Asif Mohammed Hanif left an ordinary house in suburban London to attend business studies classes at a nearby college.

Some 320km away, in Derby, Omar Khan Sharif, a quietly devout Muslim and father of two, could be seen making his way from his house to the Jamia Hanfia Taleem mosque to offer his daily prayers.

On the way back, he would pop in to a local corner store for a chat.

They were the ordinary lives of two men in modern Britain - one was planning a career in business, the other dedicating himself to work within the small Pakistani community where he had spent all but two years of his life.

Then they disappeared. Hanif, 21, announced three years ago that he was going to Damascus to study Arabic. Sharif, 27, was last seen in Derby a month ago.

When they resurfaced on Thursday, it was to establish two murderous and extraordinary firsts amid the smoking ruins of Mike's Place.

The two unremarkable men in their unremarkable houses had staged the first suicide mission launched from Gaza in the 31 months of the intifada by blowing up a packed bar in Tel Aviv, leaving three dead and more than 60 wounded.

More significantly, it was the first carried out in the name of the Palestinian cause by two people wholly foreign to it.

As his way into Mike's Place was blocked by a security guard, Hanif, the "war tourist" from west London, detonated a suitcase bomb packed with nails, ripping the front off the packed pub, killing himself as well as the three Israelis.

Moments earlier, his travelling companion, Sharif, had pulled out of the attack, apparently after realising that the explosive vest he was wearing was not functioning.

For the Hanif and Sharif families in Britain, it brought utter bewilderment as their passport photographs were plastered over front pages and television screens.

Taz Hanif reflected the shared utter disbelief as, on the doorstep of the family home, he said of his brother: "He was just a big teddy bear. How did this happen?"

Friends and relatives of Hanif said he had developed an interest in politics by the time he left Cranford Community College in Hounslow in June 2000 which was surpassed by his passion for spiritual matters.

After gaining a distinction in business studies, he surprised friends with news that he had decided to study Arabic at the University of Damascus, Syria, for five years.

In the meantime, he travelled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to "discover his culture".

For Omar Khan Sharif, the transformation from a Westernised existence was equally abrupt. He is the son of a wealthy businessman, Sardar Mohammed Sharif, who arrived from Pakistani Kashmir to set up a string of businesses in Derby.

The ambitions of his parents for him were reflected in their choice of school. Dating back to 1557, Repton Prep School can count Roald Dahl, Christopher Isherwood and the Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Ramsey among its famous former pupils.

Sharif was an academic success and went on to university in London, where he met his Middle Eastern wife and immersed his life in Islam.

- INDEPENDENT