Suicide bomber's family suspect son was 'brainwashed'

LONDON - Relatives of one of the London suicide bombers said on Saturday he may have been "brainwashed" and appealed for new leads in a fast-moving investigation which has so far linked Britain, Egypt and Pakistan.

"We are devastated that our son may have been brainwashed into carrying out such an atrocity, since we know him as a kind and caring member of our family," said the parents of Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30.

"We urge people with the tiniest piece of information to come forward in order to expose these terror networks which target and groom our sons to carry out such evils." Three of the bombers who blew themselves up in Britain's first suicide attacks were young British Muslims of Pakistani origin, while the fourth was a Jamaican-born Briton.

Police said another victim of the bombs had died from injuries, taking to 55 the number of people, including the bombers, who were killed in the explosions on three underground trains and a bus in the morning rush hour on July 7.

Police are seeking connections with the militant Islamist network of al Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings in the United States and a string of bombings in Bali, Morocco, Kenya, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Spain and elsewhere.

PAKISTAN ARRESTS

Pakistani security forces detained two men overnight in the eastern city of Lahore on suspicion of links with another of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, bringing the total number of arrests in Pakistan to six.

"We are interrogating whether these two people had any links with Tanweer," an intelligence official told Reuters.

Tanweer had visited Faisalabad and Lahore during two trips to Pakistan over the last two years. Pakistani intelligence sources say that in 2003 he met a man later arrested for bombing a church in the capital Islamabad.

In Egypt, police have arrested a British-trained biochemist, Magdy Elnashar, and are questioning him about the attacks.

But Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adli told the al-Gomhuria newspaper that Elnashar was not a member of al Qaeda and that Western and Arab media had drawn hasty conclusions about the arrested man.

Elnashar, 33, left England for a 45-day holiday before the bombings and intended to return, an Interior Ministry source said. He had denied any knowledge of the attacks.

London police chief Ian Blair said he would send officers to Cairo if necessary and may seek Elnashar's extradition.

The Egyptian was a researcher at Leeds University in England, and had also studied in the United States.

British newspapers said he had rented a house in Leeds where police have carried out raids and discovered explosives. The northern English city was home to three of the bombers.

A Leeds University spokeswoman said Elnashar had received a doctorate in biochemistry in May, studying "chemically inactive substances" with applications for the food industry. He was sponsored in his studies by the Egyptian government.

NO INKLING

Friends and family of the suicide bombers have said they had no inkling of their plans.

Sidique Khan, a primary school teaching assistant, was a 30-year-old married man with a daughter. He had visited the British parliament last year and met a cabinet minister during a trip with his school.

The family of Hasib Hussain, 18, said in a statement: "Hasib was a loving and normal young man who gave us no concern ... We had no knowledge of his

- REUTERS