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A Multinational List Of Missing in London
Photos of some of those missing in Thursday's bombings of three London Underground trains are posted at the King's Cross station.
(By Francois Lenoir -- Reuters)
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But if identifying the victims illustrates how Britain has taken in people of other cultures, identifying the attackers might test whether Britain has truly accepted them. Many Muslims said they were worried about a backlash against all British Muslims if the bombers are found to be Muslim -- particularly if they turn out to be from inside Britain.
"I worry about everyone, how our life will be, if al Qaeda did it," said Haydar Ali, a refugee from Iraq who was in an East London cafe watching TV coverage of the bombings. "I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid."
"God help us if the killers are local," said Azzam Tamini, head of the Muslim Association of Britain.
Some Muslim Londoners said they already felt segregated by the bombings.
"We're here to show our sympathy and also to show Muslims in support of the British people. We don't want to be marginalized," said Amal Saffour, an 18-year-old Briton of Syrian ancestry, who was attending a weekend vigil for the dead.
"We are the British people," Soha Sobhy, 22, corrected her friend. Both young women wore Muslim head scarves.
Plaistow, the neighborhood Islam hailed from in heavily Muslim East London, shows how successfully London's cultures have managed to live together, yet still maintain distinctions. This week, in the playground of a Muslim school, Arab and Russian, black and white boys kicked a soccer ball. African and Bangladeshi mothers wheeled baby buggies through the park, chatting.
Behind the counter of a store where Islam once bought candy, Rita Patel, the Hindu proprietor, remembered her as a girl who "never caused problems."
Islam's grandfather, a building contractor in Bangladesh, brought the family to East London in the 1960s. Today, residents said, the family lives in one of the larger, newer private homes in a neighborhood filled with narrow, brick, subsidized houses.
Islam shared that home with her mother, father, brother and sister. The walls of her bedroom had no political posters or banners, Hasan said. While the family discussed the war in Iraq, he said, he could not remember Islam ever taking a political stand.
The photos aired on television and in newspapers after Islam's disappearance have all showed her smiling in a turquoise Bengali tunic. In everyday life, her family said, she wore jeans.
Islam left home at 8 a.m. Thursday, clutching the Burberry bag. The family told British reporters she had contemplated skipping work that day to go to the dentist, but her mother persuaded her it would be better to report for work in the morning, then leave early.
