LEEDS, England (AP) – For British Muslims, a video in which the purported ringleader of the July 7 London bombers seeks to justify the carnage caused profound shock – erasing any doubt that a homegrown cell carried out the attack and that its members were inspired by al-Qaida.

For one of his friends, the sight of Mohammed Sidique Khan – speaking in a Yorkshire accent and wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh in the farewell message broadcast on al-Jazeera – verged on the surreal.

“We were all shocked and horrified when we saw the video itself,” said Irshad Hussain in the gritty northern city where Khan grew up. “We are just devastated for what we had just heard and what we had seen on TV. … I couldn’t believe it was actually him talking on the screen.”

Khan, one of the four July 7 bombers who killed 52 people, had his farewell message broadcast alongside a video message from al-Qaida’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, on the Arab television network late Thursday.

In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp radio, Labour Party lawmaker Shahid Malik – a Muslim who represents the neighbourhood outside Leeds where Khan lived before the attacks – said the tape would put to rest rumours that Khan and the other bombers were somehow set up.

“There is a hardcore rump within the British Muslim community that didn’t actually believe somehow that Sidique and his cohort were responsible,” said Malik. “Rampant conspiracy theories mushroomed out of control.”