The British government on Saturday rejected as "dangerous and foolish" accusations that its foreign policy heightened the threat of terrorist attacks after police foiled a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, British Muslim groups and politicians said his policies on issues like Iraq and the Israel-Hizbollah war were putting civilians at increased risk in Britain and elsewhere.
Thirteen months after four British suicide bombers killed 52 people on London's transport system, British Muslims fear they are being demonised because of extremist militants.
"We urge the prime minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism and change our foreign policy," said the letter, whose signatories included six politicians from Blair's Labour Party. But ministers were quick to reject claims that their policies had given ammunition to extremists.
"No government worth its salt should allow its foreign policy to be dictated to under the threat of terrorism," Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander told BBC Radio.
"The contemporary challenge we face is how do we maintain the safety of the British public, how do we uphold the perfect right of people to debate these issues but never to succumb to what I think would be both dangerous and foolish."
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was equally forthright, saying people who blamed Britain's foreign policy for the terrorism threat were making "the gravest possible error."
"This is part of a distorted view of the world, a distorted view of life. Let's put the blame where it belongs: with people who wantonly want to take innocent lives," she said. A suspected British al Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan has been pinpointed as a key person in the plot to blow up as many as 10 transatlantic airliners.
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