SYRIA: An English suicide bomber who killed three this week found much to inspire his hatred at Damascus University. Lynne O'Donnell visited the campus.
The rundown campus of Damascus University was quiet yesterday and the Arabic language department was deserted as residents of the Syrian capital marked Islamic holy day, but hints abounded of the sentiment that appears to have led one of its students to abandon his studies in favour of a murderous path to death.
"I love Palestine" declared the sticker above the door leading into the department where Asif Mohammed Hanif (21) was studying Arabic before becoming the first European suicide bomber. He donned a vest packed with explosives and nails and blew himself up outside a Tel Aviv café earlier this week.
"The sun of Iraq will shine with the blood of martyrs" read the Arabic on a poster of a pair of hands wringing blood from an American flag.
Pasted next to it was another glossy colour poster showing dozens of photographs of Iraqi women and children bearing horrific wounds allegedly sustained in the allied bombing of Iraq last month.
Hanif killed three people in the beachside café in an attack that appeared timed to coincide with the announcement of a multilateral "road map" aimed at laying a foundation for peace in the troubled Middle Eastern region.
He and an accomplice were sent on their mission by the militant Islamic organisation, Hamas, which claimed responsibility. Some of the few students wandering the campus yesterday expressed sympathy with Hanif's cause.
"Many people here are very angry at the United States and hate Bush because they are occupying an Arab, a Muslim country," said a young woman who preferred not to give her name.
"Many young men from Syria went to fight in Iraq against the Americans, not because they were organised to do so, but because they felt it was the right thing to do, and so they got together with their friends and went.
"The borders were open, it was easy, so off they went," she said as she pulled her pale blue head-scarf higher on her head.
At the breezy cafeteria near the university's dormitories, a clean-shaven student said it was unlikely anyone associated with extremist groups would have taken a room on campus.
"That sort of person would be in a safe house of some sort, keeping his mind clear of distractions in preparation for the mission," he said.
Omar Khan Sharif (27) failed to detonate his body bomb and is now being hunted by Israeli police.
But Hanif's success highlights the burgeoning number of young British Muslim men who are willing to join extremist groups and pledge their lives to anti-Western jihadi movements.
But while the attack sent shivers through the British police and security forces, one leading Muslim community leader and Labour MP, Mr Khalid Mahmood, said the attack by the two young Britons was inevitable.
Mr Mahmood said: "There are people who have been tolerated for too long in this country and allowed to preach their vile doctrines."