Posted on 07/27/2005 12:52:07 PM PDT by Lori675
They came to Britain seeking sanctuary from famine and war in east Africa, receiving assistance, education and help from the state. But yesterday, Yasin Hassan Omar and Muktar Said Ibrahim were the subject of a massive police hunt suspected suicide bombers who attempted to cause carnage in the country they had made their home.
As police continued a fast-moving manhunt for the two men along with two unknown accomplices a contrasting picture of the pair emerged. Some friends said they were normal men who played football in the park every Sunday and, seemingly, both wanted to consider themselves part of British life. But another picture of criminality, hardline Islamic beliefs and hostility to their adopted country also emerged.
Said Ibrahim, 27, also known as Mohammed Said, arrived in Britain from Eritrea in 1992, aged 14, to join his family who had been in the country for two years. He was granted exceptional leave to remain and is believed to have lived with his family in Henselin Close in the Stanmore area on the northern outskirts of London and, until 1994, attended Canons High School in Edgware. He was granted British citizenship last September. Omar, 24, who arrived from Somalia in 1993 when he was 12, was granted indefinite leave to remain here.
Ibrahim appears to have had a chequered life. Reports emerged last night suggesting that he was convicted at the age of 17 for being part of a teenage gang which terrorised commuters at railway stations.
The gang was reportedly caught robbing at knifepoint in 1995, and Ibrahim is believed to have been sentenced to five years in jail in 1996, qualifying for early release in 1998. Reports last night suggested he had served time in Huntercombe Young Offenders Institution in Oxfordshire and a prison in Aylesbury.
The Home Office was unable to comment last night on how Ibrahim was able to obtain a British passport following his conviction and prison sentence.
His family said yesterday that he left home in 1994 and had not visited for " many months". In a statement, they said they were "shocked" by the naming of their son as a suspected bomber.
One neighbour, Anthony Nolan, 25, said: "[Said Ibrahim] just seemed so normal. I don't think there is any suicide-bomber look, but nevertheless he just seemed a friendly guy. I probably only ever saw him around here twice in the years they've lived here."
Other neighbours said that Said Ibrahim spoke Arabic and had been to Saudi Arabia in 2003, the same year that he applied to become a British citizen.
For some time, he had been living with Omar and two other unidentified men in a ninth-floor, one bedroom council flat in Curtis House on an estate in New Southgate in north London.
Omar had been placed in foster care by Enfield council after arriving in Britain without his family. He lived with his foster parents until the age of 18, before being housed in the borough when he was given indefinite leave to remain. It is not known how the two men met.
One local shop owner said Omar had tried to steal food and was "always looking for ways to make money". Another witness said Said Ibrahim could be regularly seen outside Arnos Grove Tube station, some four minutes walk from Curtis House, smoking marijuana.
Omar, the official tenant, was behind with the rent and may have faced eviction proceedings. His income support payments were stopped in June, although it is not clear why.
Said Ibrahim is believed to have recently moved out and been living in Hackney although he returned regularly to Southgate. It was Hackney where the bus on which he was said to have left a bomb was bound, but the police and Hackney council were unable to provide details about where he might have lived.
At Curtis House, the two men joined others in regular trips to the park. Vance Noor, 18, who lives in an adjoining housing block, said: "The two guys would come out every Sunday. It was always around the same time 4pm to 7pm. They were part of a group of about 11 Somalis who used to come out to play [football]. The two guys ran about loads, especially the tubby one [Ibrahim], who was a mad tackler. He always gave as good as he got on the pitch.
"They didn't have sports clothes they wore jeans and T-shirts but they did have football boots. They just seemed to be normal guys. They were friendly but didn't talk much beyond that. We just knew them as regular guys. They weren't that good at football though."
There was another side to the men, who began holding prayer meetings in Curtis House. It is not known whether either man visited local mosques, but some reports linked Said Ibrahim with mosques in Finsbury Park and Brixton.
Kausor, 23, an Asian man who said the pair had recently persuaded him to become more devout, said: "They were devout Muslims. They prayed five times a day. We talked about Islam and current issues. We talked about the Ummah [Muslim brotherhood] and how it was being attacked."
Said Ibrahim was also reported to have grown a beard and to have begun wearing traditional dress. A neighbour of Ibrahim, Sarah Scott, age 23, who lives two doors down from the Stanmore home Ibrahim used to live with his parents, described a conversation they had last November. "We were standing outside our houses chatting. He asked me if I was religious and I said I did not believe in anything. He said I should. He told me he was going to get 80 virgins when he got to heaven if he praised Allah.
"He smiled and laughed as he said it, then he gave me this book about Islam and told me to read it.
"He was quite Westernised. The reason we got friendly was because we used to sit outside our parents' houses to smoke. I've known him since I was 11. When I saw the photograph of Said in the paper it all made sense.I remembered what he had said to me and I was terrified."
Miss Scott, a shop assistant, said Ibrahim had visited his parents' home two weeks ago. She said he had never mentioned jihad or terrorism, but gave her a pamphlet, Understanding Islam, with highlighted passages, one of which read: "Anyone who says 'there is no God except Allah' and dies holding to that will enter paradise."
Yesterday, the flat at Curtis House remained sealed off, suspected of being the "bomb factory" where the men made the devices that failed to explode last week. The search continued for its last occupants, captured on CCTV, about bomb the city that adopted them.
The immigration question
Tens of thousands of asylum-seekers fleeing turmoil in east Africa have arrived in Britain over the past decade.
About one third have been granted asylum after satisfying the Home Office that they face torture or persecution if they are sent home.
Another third have been allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds. Typically - and like Muktar Said Ibrahim and Yasin Hassan Omar, who came as dependants of adult relatives who claimed asylum - they have been granted exceptional leave to remain, usually for a period of four years.
They can then reapply for that permission or to be awarded the status of indefinite leave to remain, as Omar did.
Eventually the option of applying for British citizenship is open to refugees, providing they can satisfy the authorities that they speak good English and that they are of good character.
According to the Home Office, 43,225 Somalians, excluding dependants, applied for asylum between 1995 and 2003. About 16,000 were granted asylum and another 15,000 were given exceptional leave to remain.
Some 4,670 Eritreans applied for asylum over the period, with 1,125 awarded asylum or given permission to stay. However, failed asylum-seekers are not returned to the two countries because of unrest there. Much of Somalia is gripped by civil war, while reports of torture and repression have come from Eritrea.
Police and immigration officials are checking through the records of tens of thousands of asylum-seekers from east Africa in the 1990s in an attempt to identify associates of the bombers.
Maybe that's where old dead Chevy Vegas go...and it's not virgins at all.
Actual number of virgins will probably be less.
Actual number of virgins will definitely be ZILCH!
Eritrea and Somaila...the US has let in thousands of them. I am more familiar with the Somali and Sudanese Mohameddans. The Eritreans I know are Christian and having a rough time back in their country.
Watch out is all I can say. Put it this way - I find it easier to deal with Yemenis "off the boat" than with Somalis who have been here for years.
For those of you who know any Somalis do not let the smiles fool you. They have vicious temperaments when aroused (especially the males).
What is really hilarious about this is it seems there are no real muslim virgins to be found - everything I read seems to indicate they are deflowered by their brothers, fathers, etc., then passed around to the neighbors to settle grievances and debts....before being burned publically...Allah is another word for Satan....
Mohammed and Omar in Paradise:
"We'd each like our 80 virgins, please."
"That's a little high, men."
"No, not a little hymen. A lot of hymen. 80 each."
Sure they do.... Beat the living daylights out of them
So that's why the women have to be covered from head to toe, to hide all the bruises.
The 8 extra virgins were outsourced to India.
We must not have an 80 virgin gap.
"oh - almost forgot. Any plans for a trip to Iran, Ladies? Don't lick Ice Cream cones in public. Its against Islamic law. Its quite seductive that ice cream licking...
I'm serious."
Well it's about time someone stopped these chicks from their seductive snacking! Ridiculous.
"Why mass fornication is permitted in paradise and not alcohol, I have no idea."
No, see, Allah's final trick is that the good Musselman does indeed get 72 (now 80) virgins.
But that's just it.
They're virgins by definition. That's how they're defined.
And that's how they STAY too.
So, he doesn't get any down here, in preparation for blowing himself up so that he can go up there and not get any.
Allah's got a pretty wicked sense of humor.
(The proof of this, of course, is the camel.)
I'm convinced Allah is the fallen angel Lucifer.
Yep, and you have to go elsewhere for that! Everywhere else, since "good girls go to Heaven, bad girls go everywhere." :o)
We agree on Lucifer. Seems pretty obvious.
If the Muslim version of 'heaven' is to do what they love best, they must want the virgins for abusive sex after which they get to cover them in rags, beat them and treat them like slaves. What else?
Something else to consider- 'virgins' we assume are female. Because Muslims seem to have an inherent contempt for females, the virgins are probably male.
What a sick, sick bunch of evil brainwashed cultists!
We've got to start dropping these leaflets all over the mid east, the whole mid east....80.. 72.. not much difference....
God warned us to beware of false gods.
Guess Mohammed didn't get the memo.
Somebody want to explain... Ahhhh nevermind I don't want to know.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.