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Gold9472
07-13-2005, 08:05 PM
Muslims agonize over London bomb attacks

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/07/13/muslims_agonize_over_london_bomb_attacks?mode=PF

By Paisley Dodds, Associated Press Writer | July 13, 2005

LONDON --More than 100 revenge attacks -- including the alleged beating death of a Pakistani immigrant -- have been reported across Britain since the London bombings. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Britons not to judge all Muslims by the acts of those inspired by a "perverted and poisonous misinterpretation" of Islam.

Blame for the July 7 bus and subway attacks, which killed at least 52 people and wounded 700, immediately fell on Muslims, with many suspecting al-Qaida. Fears of reprisals grew in Britain's Pakistani community with news Tuesday that three of four suspects were young men of Pakistani origin.

Muslims spoke out about the need to shield their children from the radical thinking believed to have led the first suicide bombings in Western Europe. Police have increased security in Muslim areas.

Moazamm Begg, who spent two years in a U.S. prison camp after being accused of being an al-Qaida operative, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that many Muslims, particularly those with Pakistani roots, were thinking of leaving Britain.

"Muslims in Britain are feeling huge repercussions from the attacks," he said.

According to the Muslim Council, a man of Pakistani origin was reportedly beaten to death Sunday in Nottingham. In Kent, the council said, an 18-year-old student from the United Arab Emirates had his jaw broken by a teenager who hurled a glass bottle at him after a brawl. Police have not confirmed the reports.

In Croydon, an area south of London, a man pushed a petrol-soaked rag through the letter box of a Muslim house, police said. A mosque in Camden, outside London, has received several bomb threats. In Hackney, another town outside London, the homes of two Muslims were stoned.

Anti-Muslim graffiti has been scrawled on mosques and other buildings.

Britain has a strong Muslim presence -- as much as 20 percent in some places -- and has long tolerated more freedom of religious expression than other European countries.

Analysts believe a clutch of fundamentalist Islamic preachers across Britain have helped radicalize pockets of disaffected Muslim youth, but many also point to resentment against Britain for joining the U.S. coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many in the tight-knit Pakistani community in the northern city of Leeds, about 185 miles from London where the four bombers are believed to have grown up, spoke out Wednesday against the attacks, saying the young bombers had been corrupted.

"They were from a good family and they were not troubling neighbors. We're worried about our children's future now -- people might use them," a 27-year-old woman said of the alleged bombers. Like many Muslims in Leeds, she refused to give her name for fear of a backlash against the neighborhood or friends and family of the suspects.

Shahid Malik, one of four Labour Party lawmakers who met with Blair on Wednesday, called on the Muslim community to confront radicals trying to recruit Britain's youth.

"Condemnation is not enough and British Muslims must, and I believe are prepared to, confront the voices of evil head on," Malik told Parliament.

The government was considering introducing a series of anti-terrorism measures, including the first identity cards for foreign nationals issued since World War II, and the speedy deportation of foreigners convicted of inciting violence or hatred.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone urged people not to judge Muslims on the basis of last week's bombings.

"You don't judge one of the great world religions, which has been behind so much progress in human history, and is overwhelmingly dominated by people who look for peaceful cooperation, by a handful of fanatics," Livingstone said.

Inayat Bungalwala, spokesman for Muslim Council of Britain, said those seeking the attackers' motivation should not look to religion.

"We have to look at what would make them so angry and so embittered that they contemplated an act to harm their own country. One thing is clear: they were motivated more by hatred than the faith of Islam," Bungalwala said.