7/7 bomber 'targeted children as young as 11 for indoctrination'

Terrorist leader Mohammed Sidique Khan targeted "disaffected and vulnerable" children as young as 11 for indoctrination, the 7/7 inquest heard today.

He tried to convert pupils at a primary school where he was a "learning mentor", a court was told.

One pupil told how Khan took him to the extremist Iqra bookshop in Leeds and told him that Britain "would pay for what they have done to Pakistan".

Khan, 30, was employed at the Hillside Primary School and had no formal qualifications but was taken on because of his experience as a youth worker.

Coroner Dame Heather Hallett, pointed out that Khan "would have got through any vetting regime" because of his lack of previous convictions.

Until just months before the 7/7 attack he was considered by teaching staff to be "impressive" and won the respect of many of the pupils, the inquest was told.

Khan was the mastermind of the atrocities of July 2005 in which 52 innocent people died on London's transport network and more than 700 were injured.

Bombs were detonated on tube trains at Kings Cross, Russell Square and Edgware Road and a bus in Tavistock Square.