The government today identified a suicide bomber who killed three people in an attack on a Tel Aviv nightclub on Wednesday and another would-be attacker as British citizens. The acknowledgment raised suggestions that militant British Muslims, previously associated with groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, may have shifted their focus to the Middle East. Asif Hanif, 21, who died in the suicide attack, and Omar Khan Sharif, 27, an accomplice who reportedly escaped after failing to detonate his bomb, are the first Britons known to be prepared to kill themselves in the militant Islamic cause. “We think that the terrorists had British passports, which is something especially sad,” said Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain’s ambassador to Israel. As with other British Muslims who were found to have been fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan or planning terrorist acts in Britain, Mr. Hanif and Mr. Sharif grew up in middle-class or blue-collar environments. That seemed to set them apart from the more typical image of suicide bombers molded by the hardships of Gaza or the West Bank. Full Story
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