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THE CASE of Richard Reid, a British Muslim convert charged with attempting to blow up an American Airlines flight with an explosive concealed in his shoe, has focussed attention on an apparently widespread campaign by Muslim extremist groups in Britain to recruit socially maladjusted youth for terrorist activities.

The unusual aspect of this campaign, it is stated, is that it targets small-time criminals who have just come out of prison and are therefore both angry and more vulnerable. Many freshly-released prisoners have no permanent address and tend to take refuge in the nearest mosque, and it is there that they are lured into extremist circles.

``A lot of the people who come are very vulnerable. They need help and support and come to the mosque to learn. These are the ones that extremists prey on,'' says Abdul Haqq Baker, chairman of London's Brixton Mosque which, he adds, has become one of the main recruiting centres for militant Islamic groups. Mr. Baker, himself a Black convert to Islam, caused a stir last week when he said Reid had been a worshipper at his mosque at the same time as Zacarias Moussaoui, who has been charged in the U.S. for his alleged role in the September 11 attacks.

He described how Reid slowly changed from a moderate worshipper into a militant and started arguing in the language of the extremists. The change, according to Mr. Baker, happened after Reid came under the influence of hardline Islamists hanging around the Brixton Mosque in search of ``recruits''.

Reid, son of a Black father and an English mother, was a ``perfect'' candidate - child of a broken home, and a school dropout who took to petty crime and did time in prison where he got converted to Islam.

In more normal times, he might have been dismissed as yet another social misfit and, with a little help, even been reformed. At worst, he would have ended up as a drifter. But in a climate of religious extremism which needs a constant supply of fresh blood to sustain it, men such as Reid are sitting ducks.

Media reports speak of ``hundreds of Richard Reids'' who have been recruited across Britain in recent years, and if these reports are true many have gone on to do terrible things - just as Reid nearly did when he allegedly tried to detonate a ``shoe bomb'' on a Paris-Miami flight a few weeks ago.

Reid's transformation from a ``lonely lad with an empty life'', as his distraught aunt described him, to becoming a ``shoe-bomber'' is said to be typical of hundreds of socially disturbed and confused young Muslims who fall prey to militancy.

The new converts tend to be particularly vulnerable because, as one moderate cleric said, they are more eager to prove themselves as Muslims. One reason why the Brixton Mosque has become a favourite hunting ground of militant ``brain-washers'' is that it caters mostly to new converts and is run by moderate clerics.

The Reid case has also brought into the open the tension between militant and moderate Muslim opinion in Britain disproving the myth of a monolithic fundamentalist ``Muslim viewpoint''.

Recently, many liberal Muslim voices have spoken up and even criticised the Government for not doing enough to check extreme tendencies despite being warned about their activities.

``We have been in contact with the police numerous times over the last five years to warn of the threat posed by militant groups operating in our area. Only now are they bothering to follow it up. My fear is that this is all too little, too late,'' Mr. Baker said.

There have been calls for a review of the preferential immigration rules for foreign clerics ``imported'' into Britain to run mosques and temples.

Often, ``imams'' from fundamentalist backgrounds arrive here, and take over mosques where they then preach their militant version of Islam. Zaki Badawi, principal of the Muslim College, London, and a leading liberal campaigner, has demanded closing down of the nearly 300 ``madrassas'' across Britain as these are used to ``indoctrinate'' children. A campaign has also begun against unqualified ``imams'' in prisons following reports that many engage in proselytisation.

``We don't know what their qualifications are or from where they are recruited,'' says Abdul Jalil Sajid, himself a prison imam and a member of the National Council for the Welfare of Muslim Prisoners. He has alleged ``infiltration'' of prisons by ``bogus'' imams, and complained that the Government has ignored his repeated warnings.

In their zeal, the proselytisers have often ended up approaching happily practising Christians, only to be told to mind their own business.

The former Tory MP, Jonathan Aitken, who served a prison term for attempting to pervert the course of justice, described in The Observer how he was approached by fellow Muslim prisoners on four occasions.

``I had the impression that I was approached almost as a matter of routine, because these Muslim proselytisers were actively looking for converts,'' he said pointing out that his own experience told him that attempts to covert prisoners to Islam were ``prevalent up and down the country''.

Islam being a proselytising religion, no one, of course, can object to such attempts but the disturbing question is: conversion to what purpose? To turn new Muslims into terrorists? ``Muslim terrorists'' if you please?

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