The targets being hit by the bombers over the past fortnight closely mirror those identified in Combat 18's manifesto, ``What We Stand for...'', published in 1993. The neo-Nazi group is believed to have been involved in the three London nail bomb attacks.

Top of the list were ``all non-Whites'' they should be shipped back to Africa and Asia ``in body bags'', it said. Next were the IRA and ``anyone else who kills British squaddies and children''.

But it was the exhortations to ``execute all queers'', ``White race mixers'' and ``Jews'', as well as instructions on how to make bombs and detonators that are most chilling in the light of recent events.

Worryingly for the police, C18 also gave detailed instructions on how to avoid detection by M15 (British counter-intelligence) and Special Branch (police intelligence) -- the agencies now assistingScotland Yard in the hunt for the bombers.

Del O'Connor, head of the White Wolves - which sent stencilled death threats to prominent Black MPs and peers on April 14, two days before the Brixton bomb, and which also claimed responsibility for the atrocities in Brick Lane and Soho -- took this philosophy of ``leadership resistance'' even further.

The former head of C18's north of England operations, O'Connor set up the White Wolves in 1995 after being released from prison where he served three years for assault.

Soon after, The Observer newspaper in London obtained a booklet urging members of the group to form cells to attack non-Whites in a bid to spark a ``tit for tat'' race war.

``The race war is not about to happen so we must start it ourselves,'' said the booklet. ``Sophisticated weaponry is not necessary to start the ball rolling anything which stirs the racial pot is justified.''

If the White Wolves are behind the recent bombings, they might well have been inspired by the war in Kosovothe group gets its name from a Serbian terrorist group. Following the Brick Lane bombing, it sent a stencilled death threat to an Asian newspaper in Bethnal Green, east London. The threat was identical to previous ones sent out before the Brixton bomb but this time contained a recognised police codeword. It read: ``Notice is hereby given that all non-Whites (defined by blood, not religion) must permanently leave the British Isles before the year is out.

``Jews and non-Whites who remain after 1999 has ended will be exterminated. When the clocks strike midnight on the 31st of December, 1999, the White Wolves will begin to howl and when the Wolves begin to howl, the Wolves begin to hunt. You have been warned. Hail Britannia.''

The arrest of a suspect with explosives in southern England on Saturday suggests that police may at last be closing in on the individuals responsible for the nail bomb attacks. But anti-Fascist experts warn that the philosophy of anonymous direct action preached by the White Wolvesand C18 makes it difficult even for heads of these groups to know what is being done in their name.