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Terror in Great Britain

Birmingham Wakes up to Terror on its Doorstep

By Neil Connor

One of the suspected terrorists arrested in Britain this week came from Birmingham, long considered an integration success story. Residents of the Hay Mills district are still in shock over the fact that one of their immigrant neighbors hated Britain enough to want to kill its citizens.

Birmingham is one of Britain's most multi-cultural and open cities, and its residents are rightly proud of their community relations. The news that Yasin Hassan Omar, a 24-year-old Somalian who was connected with the failed bombing attempts in London, lived here has deeply unsettled everyday life in the area. Residents here are still in a state of shock over his arrest.

"This has always been a great community where local people of all different ethnic groups and religions know each other's Christian names," said Parvindar Singh, who owns the local Heybarnes Convenience Store, on Heybarnes Road, where Omar lived.

Reports that he was immobilized by a stun-gun because he was about to blow himself up has understandably unnerved the local community. Singh is still shocked. "People come into my shop from all works of life, Sikh businessman who live on the road, Chinese students and the local white people," he explained. Until now, people have got along well, and Singh says it has "come as a shock that one of the people connected with what has gone on in London lives here."

The revelation is made even more unsettling by the fact that Birmingham has long been a multicultural success story. As other cities in northern England have experienced race riots and a steady stream of voting for extremist parties, Birmingham has been an example of tolerance, openness and cohesion.

Terrorism here, however, is nothing new. The brutality of violence has long been a reality for Birmingham. Up until the July 7 bombings in London, the worst-ever mass murder of civilians in peacetime in the British mainland was in Birmingham, where the IRA killed 21 people in two pubs in the city center in 1974. The incident shattered the illusion that the city was somehow protected from Irish republicanism because of the large Irish community living here. And any notion that Islamic terror would not be able to nurture itself in multicultural Birmingham also evaporated with the news that a would-be suicide bomber had settled in the Hay Mills suburb of the city.

Fear and uncertainty has now permeated Hay Mills. Singh was preparing to open his shop on Wednesday at about 5 a.m. when he was told by police that he was being evacuated. Along with residents from about 100 homes, he had to take a few belongings with him and go to relatives or to Saltley Community Leisure Center in nearby Bordesley Green. The local council opened the center as police cordoned off the area and forensic teams examined the house where Omar lived.

Other residents evacuated included 21-year-old Vanessa Beards and her eight-month-old daughter Amelia. "The police told us we had to leave straight away and I just had time to grab some clothes for the baby," she said. "She got really upset because she didn't know what was happening. You hear about these things in London, but it doesn't seem so real until it hits you."

Vanessa, who lived almost opposite the house where the terrorist suspect was arrested, said she was aware of the man living in the area. "To be honest, it's made me feel nervous that there might have been a bomb in there," she added.

A couple had lived at the rented house for a while, but more recently, according to neighbors, four young men with a "smiley African" appearance frequented the house but rarely stayed there long.

Other neighbors described Omar's house as "scruffy," with overgrown hedges and windows decorated with tatty net curtains. Apparently, the residents of the house often had arguments with their neighbors because they would leave rubbish out in the street and in the garden. Neighbors also had issues with Omar leaving his car in the way of other residents' driveways.

"I always found it strange that these four men could live at that address because it is quite a small house," said neighbor Katy Stuart. "I never understood how they could all stay there. They were always coming and going, sometimes at really odd times of the day. I have seen a picture of the bombers and I recognized one of them from that house."

The wider Hay Mills area has in recent years become home to many Somalians who have settled in Birmingham as asylum seekers following the turmoil in their own country. Most of them live towards the west of Hay Mills, near the soccer field of Birmingham City, about one or two miles from the city center. It's a place where first-generation East Africans live together with a large Asian population.

Omar, who attempted to blow up the train at Warren Street tube station, came to Britain when he was twelve. Three of the bombers who succeeded in bringing carnage to the capital on July 7 were born and bred British nationals of Pakistani origin from Leeds, in the north of England. Omar was only in Britain for half of his life. But it was apparently long enough for him to come to hate the world around Heybarnes Road enough to want to blow up other people in Britain.

Neil Connor is a senior reporter at the Birmingham Post.