Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, today blamed Western interference overseas for the growth of Islamic extremism and for creating the conditions to drive terrorists to commit acts such as the London bombings.

Asked about the causes of Islamic fundamentalism and violence, Mr Livingstone said that the meddling of Western governments in the Middle East to protect oil supplies was a contributing factor.

"I think we have just had 80 years of Western intervention in predominantly Arab lands because of the Western need for oil," the Mayor told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning.

"We have propped up unsavoury governments, we have overthrown ones that we didn’t consider sympathetic."

Mr Livingstone did not mention the Iraq war as a specific grievance for Islamic militants but pointed to a longer incubation of anger.

His comments prompted a swift rebuttal from Downing Street. Tony Blair's official spokesman said that the Prime Minister "fundamentally" disagreed with the Mayor's analysis of the causes of terrorism.

"The Prime Minister and Ken Livingstone have different views of the world and that remains the case," said the spokesman.

"Equally, however, we recognise that Ken Livingstone has provided, as an elected official in London, a lead to the people of London at this tragic time - at the same time as he expresses views which we fundamentally disagree with."

Mr Livingstone's views on the rise of Islamic extremism have been closely examined since the July 7 attacks because of his perceived sympathy in the past for attacks by Palestinian terrorists in Israel.

Today, the Mayor condemned all suicide bombings but suggested that the "double standards" exhibited in Western foreign policy towards the Middle East had given rise to enormous feelings of antipathy among Islamic extremists.

"I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s the Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs and sent him off to kill the Russians in Afghanistan and they didn’t give any thought to the fact that once he had done that, he might turn on his creators," he said.

"I have not the slightest doubt that, if at the end of the First World War we had done what we promised the Arabs, which was to let them be free and have their own governments, and kept out of Arab affairs, and just bought their oil, rather than feeling we had to control the flow of oil, I suspect this wouldn’t have arisen.

"I have watched Western governments, so terrified of losing control of their fuel supplies, that all my life there have been interventions in the Middle East by Western governments.

"It is the double standards that flow from that. We initially welcomed Saddam Hussein to power, our intelligence services gave him lists of trade unionists and communists - as did the CIA - that we wanted killed, and he then turned on us.

"You have also got this running sore of the Palestine Israeli conflict. A lot of young people see the double standards, they see what happens in Guantanamo Bay, and they just think that there isn’t a just foreign policy," the Mayor said.

Mr Livingstone's comments come two days after a report published by a leading foreign policy think tank said that Britain's junior role in the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had left it vulnerable to attack by Islamic militants.

Yesterday the Prime Minister dismissed the Chatham House report and warned that the logic behind it was the same as that used by extremists themselves.

"Of course these terrorists will use Iraq as an excuse. They will use Afghanistan," Mr Blair said at a news conference with the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai.

"September 11 of course happened before both of these things, and then the excuse was American policy, or Israel. They will always have their reasons for acting," he said.

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