Without citing sources, the Times said the mastermind behind the attacks as well as the bombmaker were still thought to be at large. Police found a “bomb factory” during the Leeds raids, the newspaper said.
M.J. Gohel, director of a London-based counterterrorism think tank, said the idea of home-grown British suicide bombers targeting their compatriots had elevated the threat of terrorism to an unprecedented level.
“We are now in an entirely new dimension as regard the terror threat,” said Gohel, “a new generation of terrorists, intelligent, educated individuals from solid middle-class backgrounds ... possessing all the Western social skills, no criminal record ... who fits in totally but is infected by the Al Qaeda ideology of global jihad, a hatred for the country he lives in, and the desire to destroy the democratic and secular world.”