The four 7/7 bombers are as seared in our memory as the photographs of the tangled mass of twisted metal and concrete that their trail of destruction left behind. But there is one often forgotten player who masterminded the attacks on the capital 10 years ago this week.

Rashid Rauf was the son of a Birmingham baker who progressed up the ranks of Al Qaida to become extremist royalty. When the London bombings took place, he was in Pakistan, from where he co-ordinated the attack and compiled a report. “A few months after the operation, I had a dream in which Sidique and Shehzad were sitting and smiling, looking very happy,” he wrote at the time.

“Sidique” was 30-year-old Mohammed Sidique Khan, a married father-of-one and teaching assistant from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. “Shehzad” was 22-year-old sports science graduate Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds. Between them, they murdered 13 people after detonating suicide bombs on the Circle line on a Thursday morning 10 years ago. The other explosives set off that day by their teenage accomplices, Germaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain, ensured that 52 lives were lost.

The attack was not just Al Qaida’s most successful ever on British soil, but also breathed vivid life into the concept of the homegrown terrorist — born and raised here, and beneficiaries of our schools and universities who suddenly turn murderously against the state. Rauf epitomises this story. A young Brummie born to a Pakistani family who migrated to the UK, Rauf grew up in a terraced house in the east of the city. He helped out at his father’s bakery during holidays from Washwood Heath High School. From there, he got a place at Portsmouth University.

In 2002, Rauf fled to Pakistan, where he quickly rose up the ranks and became a conduit for Al Qaida in its attempts to draw in young British recruits. By the time he was killed in a drone strike in 2008, he had moved into a senior Al Qaida role and was married into a prominent jihadist family.

A decade on from 7/7, the rise of the suburban mujahideen has become an all-too familiar tale. Last month, Talha Asmal, 17 — who, like Khan, also hailed from Dewsbury — became the youngest suicide bomber Britain has produced. The former student at Mirfield Free Grammar and Sixth Form blew himself up in a car bomb in Iraq alongside three other extremists in a coordinated Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) attack.

His devastated parents have said he was the victim of the terrorist group’s perverse ideology; they had no idea he was being exploited to make the transition from “ordinary Yorkshire lad” to suicide bomber. A new wave of terrorism building in the sands of Syria and Iraq is already giving rise to the next generation of British terrorists.

What ties them all together are their relatively ordinary backgrounds. They see little appeal in the middle-class lives they are headed for, and instead are being drawn to fight in the great struggle of their age in Daesh.

There are multiple reasons why so many young Britons are being lured to extremism 10 years after the terrorist atrocity of 7/7. Some are drawn by religious ideology; long-term activists and people interested in Islamic ideas who seize upon the narrative peddled by Daesh propagandists.

Others are attracted to the sheer excitement of participating in a foreign conflict. Then there is the perceived redemptive value of the fight in Syria and Iraq, regarded by some troubled young people as a way of earning respect. When growing up, Rauf and a friend allegedly skirted on the fringes of the local gang community, ending up involved with the Aston Panthers. This is something one sees often among British extremists.

Thomas Evans, a 25-year-old from High Wycombe, Bucks, was killed in Kenya last month while fighting for the terror group Al Shabaab. Evans floated around in local gangs, a petty criminal who re-invented himself as an international warrior for his deity.

Richard Reid, who was jailed in 2001 after attempting to ignite a shoe bomb on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, grew up in the London suburb of Bromley and spent time in Feltham young offenders institution for petty crime. The 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay, who killed 26 on the Piccadilly line, came from a broken home and dabbled in petty crime before embracing religion.

Others, however, simply want to escape banal, middle-class lives — and it is this disaffection that proves so difficult for the authorities and families to monitor. Glasgow teenager Aqsa Mahmoud, who fled to join Daesh in 2013, was privately educated and grew up in a happy, close-knit home.

Khan wanted to travel and ended up working at a desk job with a degree from a local university. Tanweer had a nice car and enjoyed playing cricket. Samantha Lewthwaite, Lindsay’s wife and the so-called ‘White Widow’, was born to a military family in Aylesbury, Bucks.

What has changed in recent years, as the recent recruitment of suicide bomber Asmal shows, is the power of online propaganda and connections to help recruit would-be extremists and persuade young Britons of their connection to the cause and others involved in it. On the internet you can have these multiple identities and completely fictitious online profiles that have no connection with real life. Shami Witness, who ran the most influential pro-Daesh Twitter account before it was shut down last year, turned out to be an executive in Bengaluru working for an Indian conglomerate.

It is easy to reinvent yourself online. The other interesting aspect that persists is the sense of shared camaraderie that can be a strong lure for young men and women. The 7/7 bombers supposedly laughed and hugged at King’s Cross before embarking on their final journeys.

A close bond of friendship is also what motivated the teenage Bethnal Green Academy pupils Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana to travel to Istanbul in February and on to Syria. In 2013, the Pompey Lads, the group of six extremists from Portsmouth who travelled to fight for Daesh, discussed their upcoming trip as if preparing for a holiday.

Ten years on from 7/7, we are continuing to see young men and women drawn by extremist narratives to fight in foreign fields. At some point, it is possible they will return to launch attacks in the UK. The next generation of British suburban mujahideen have yet to mature into threats such as Rashid Rauf and Mohammad Siddique Khan, but it is likely only a matter of time before they do.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2015

Raffaello Pantucci is director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of ‘We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Mujahedeen’.