Prime Minister Tony Blair's refusal to accept that the war in Iraq has alienated Britain's Muslims is fuelling anger in the community Islamic leaders say.
A year after four British Islamists killed themselves and 52 commuters in suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network last July, Muslim leaders say the government has done little to counter home-grown extremism.
"If anything the situation has deteriorated one year on from 7/7," said Anjem Choudary, an outspoken leader of Al-Ghurabaa, a group born out of the disbanded radical Al Muhajiroun organisation which praised the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Britain is home to about 1.8 million Muslims, nearly 3 percent of the population, and the vast majority were horrified by last July's bombings. In the aftermath, Blair and Muslim leaders promised to work together to try to root out extremists and prevent further attacks. Many Muslims, including moderate voices, say Blair has failed to tackle the main problem -- his foreign policy and, especially, the war in Iraq.
"The government seems to always detract from the foreign policy thing, they don't want to make it an issue," said Sulaiman Moolla, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies which has a 90,000-strong membership. "It's like they're in denial to be honest. If you truly want to understand, you don't live in denial."
In a videotape released after his death, the 7/7 leader Mohammad Sidique Khan said he had acted because "your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world".
However Blair has always insisted Iraq was not responsible for radicalising the men who carried out the attacks, conscious of the fact the war was unpopular and opposed by many Britons. "We must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress; that if only we altered this decision or that, the extremism would fade away," Blair said recently.
He argued that foreign policy was used as an excuse by those seeking to justify a warped version of Islam. Both moderates and radical British Muslims say it is an issue that must be confronted. "(Iraq) has been a great concern for Muslims. It is an ongoing concern, especially the situation in Palestine, Chechnya. These impact on the psyche of young people," said Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary General of the moderate Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Britain's biggest Islamic group.
"After 7/7 we recommended that there should be a public inquiry to see whether foreign policy had an impact. We are continuing to raise this." Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation the government announced it intended to ban after the bombings, agrees.
"People expect the government, if it is sincere about looking at the causes of anger, to consider Iraq. It refuses to even countenance that as a possible factor," he told Reuters. "It seems to be interested in giving an appearance of doing something rather than actually tackling the issue at hand."
Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission decried "the end justifies the means" philosophy he said was advocated by Blair and US President George W. Bush. "They say to get rid of a tyrant like Saddam (Hussein) it is justifiable to kill all those people -- it is in many ways the same thing the terrorists and their twisted minds think."
Measures that the government has taken since 7/7 include introducing tough new anti-terrorism laws and setting up a Muslim task force to examine why many young men felt alienated. The Home Office (Interior ministry) said the task force had made substantial progress and many of its proposals were ready for the communities to put in place with the government's backing.
Many Muslims described the initiative as little more than a publicity stunt. "To organise for seven weeks a group of very diverse people that meets at most five or six times to solve the six-million-dollar question is absurd," Shadjareh told Reuters. "Since when has a road show solved the problems in any community? It is disgraceful."
The security laws, which include outlawing the "glorification of terrorism" and banning "preachers of hate", along with an increase in police raids and the use of stop and search had also raised tensions. "Were these measures to deal with protecting society or measures to silence dissent?" asked Mustafa.
"We all hope that there will not be a repeat (of 7/7)...but the government needs to stop this campaign of repression, attempting to silence those who disagree with it." Meanwhile, radicals such as Choudary dismissed the ability of mainstream community leaders to reach those most likely to carry out attacks.
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