by Dr Mohammed Ali, Founder and Chief Executive of QED Foundation

WHO is to blame for the radicalisation of Britain's youngest suicide bomber?

And who is responsible for the growing numbers of young people seeking to join the Islamic State?

Ten years after the 7/7 attacks killed 52 civilians and left another 700 injured, we still struggle to understand why British citizens are prepared to commit atrocities in support of a misguided ideology.

Everyone has his or her own idea. Some say that these actions are the result of online grooming or indoctrination from within local communities. Others point their fingers at schools, mosques, families, politicians, the police.

Yet I believe that they are all overlooking the underlying causes of radicalisation. It's true that social media grooming could light the touchpaper that finally turns a disaffected youth into a terrorist. And I agree that there is a need for continued vigilance from all the authorities coming into contact with our young people.

But we also have to look at the fundamental inequalities that leave many Muslim youngsters feeling marginalised and excluded if we are to understand why a small proportion have become susceptible to extremist messages.

It's all too easy link terrorist acts with the faith of their perpetrators. But Islam is a religion of peace and the vast majority of its followers are united in their condemnation of these crimes. Nor are the victims exclusively Christian - one of last month's atrocities targeted worshippers at a Shia mosque while the victims of the 7/7 bombings came from a wide range of religious and ethnic backgrounds.

We have to admit that the recent spate of terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France is politically motivated. British youngsters are vulnerable to propaganda that plays on a sense of righteous anger with Western interventions in the Middle East. Such approaches can work only if young people feel a sense of greater solidarity with the citizens of a country they may never have visited than with their compatriots in Britain.

At a recent White House summit, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence director Peter Neumann pointed out that it was vital to address our failure to integrate disaffected young people into society.

My experience bears this out. Twenty-five years ago I set up the charity QED Foundation with the aim of improving the social and economic position of disadvantaged communities. Although our main focus is to campaign for lasting policy change on issues affecting ethnic minorities, we continue to provide education, training and employment services in their neighbourhoods. Wile seeking to effect change at regional, national and international level, we are also in touch with the hopes, fears and concerns of Muslim young people.

And the message we are hearing is one of lack of opportunity. It's difficult to feel part of British society if your ethnic background means you are more likely to struggle on a low income, be underemployed or unemployed, lack the qualifications you need to progress or live in one of the poorest neighbourhoods.

But that is what life is like for all too many Pakistani and Bangladeshi young people. As part of the overnment's Family Resources Survey Professor Richard Berthoud of the University of Essex produced the first in-depth analysis of the income of ethnic minority households. This found that Pakistani and Bangladeshi homes were the poorest, with 60per cent falling below the unofficial poverty line.

Many QED projects have addressed these issues. Each year we assist 1,000 people to integrate into British life, providing education and support into jobs. We have helped new arrivals from overseas to become economically active and encouraged ethnic minority communities to broaden their horizons and consider a wider range of career paths.

But it's equally important for businesses and policy makers to address the barriers that prevent young Pakistani and Bangladeshi people from progressing.

We have worked with 350 small and medium-sized companies nationwide to address the under-representation of ethnic minorities among their workforces, and trained 800 senior managers in race diversity issues. And we will continue to urge leaders and policy-makers from private, public and voluntary sectors to work together to make sure that people of all ethnic backgrounds have the same opportunities.

For extremist propaganda to succeed, it has to persuade young people to identify with Islamic State rather than the UK, their towns and cities and even their neighbourhoods. This is easy when the future seems to offer no jobs, no prospect of advancement and no hope. It is much more difficult when people of all ethnic backgrounds believe they have an equal stake in society.

Yes, it is important that we remain alert to the dangers of social media indoctrination and that all the agencies coming into contact with young people work together to prevent these messages from taking hold. But if we are really to succeed in winning the hearts and minds of young Muslims, we must also earn their loyalty by creating a more fair and egalitarian society. And we can achieve this only by ensuring that minority ethnic and religious identities are no longer synonymous with poor life chances.