ON THE streets of High Wycombe, where the police are searching a number of addresses in the anti-terrorist operation, a young Muslim called Amir denounced all talk of terrorism.

September 11, he declared, was not an act carried out by al-Qaeda suicide bombers. It had been proven to be the work of the United States Air Force.

In Birmingham, where police also arrested suspected Islamist terrorists, Mohammed Naseem, the chairman of the city’s central mosque, said that there was no proof that the July 7 bombers were British Muslims. This week’s arrests, he added, have left him saddened and annoyed.

“With the track record of the police, one doesn’t have much faith in the basis on which people are detained,” he said. “And it poses the question whether the arrests are part of a political objective, by using Muslims as a target, using the perception of terrorism to usurp all our civil liberties and get more and more control while moving towards a totalitarian state.”

Such opinions, and the levels of suspicion that form them, are widely disseminated on the internet and commonly held among British Muslims, from youths on the street to those in positions of trust. They are reinforced by anger over Britain’s role in the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq and apparent blunders such as the raid in Forest Gate, East London, earlier this year when a man was shot and no evidence of an alleged chemical weapon was found.

The existence of such views is also troubling many British Muslims, who feel that they are badly represented by those who have been appointed to speak for their community. Shahid Malik, the MP for Dewsbury, told The Times that the challenge facing the Muslim community was to face up to and face down the threat from within its own ranks.

Mr Malik, one of whose constituents was Mohammed Sidique Khan, the 7/7 ringleader, attacked the Muslim Council of Britain for failing to tackle extremism. He said that many figures within the council, the national body that purports to represent British Muslims and which is frequently consulted by Downing Street, were reluctant to tackle the threat posed to the community by extremist elements.

“The MCB has not challenged extremism in any regard since July 7,” he said. “It has been very good at an advocacy role on behalf of Muslims, usually blaming the Government, the police, the politicians. Sometimes that is justified. But it has been unable to look at the challenge of extremism, acknowledge it and deal with it. We really needed the MCB to take a lead after 7/7 and it was a great disappointment.”

Mr Malik said he believed that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the perceived inaction of the West could push young Muslims towards extremism.

He said, however, that community leaders had a duty to speak out and say that violence and terrorism were not the answer to Muslim concerns. “We have to work to create a zero-tolerance attitude to views that are unacceptable in a decent society, to say that the 7/7 bombers are not martyrs going to Heaven but sinners going to Hell.”

Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the MCB, rejected criticism that his organisation was denying the existence of extremism. He said that there was a problem of denial within a small part of the Muslim community but that it was not the biggest problem facing Muslims.

Dr Bari added: “I have spoken to many young people and scholars this week and they are 100 per cent supportive of the police if it is proven that everything the police are saying is correct. But many people have doubts after what happened in Forest Gate.”

He said that he and other MCB leaders were aware that elements of the community were at risk of being radicalised by fringe groups but believed that too much attention was paid to the subject. “The discourse in the media is about radicalism, extremism and alienation of the Muslim community, but this is not helping the Muslims or wider society because it creates an image of ‘us and them’.”

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, which appears as an advertisement in The Times today, Dr Bari and other Muslim leaders state: “Current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.” The letter adds: “To combat terror, the Government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the Government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy.”

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